7 teams the Washington Wizards can hope to emulate if they get 8th seed
By Keith Cork
6. 2016-17 Portland Trailblazers
The 2016-17 Portland Trailblazers featured 25-year-old CJ McCollum and 26-year-old Damian Lillard. The oldest player on the team was 28-year-old Evan Turner, and he only appeared in 65 games. This was a young squad.
What hurt most in 2016-17 was that Jusuf Nurkić suffered a fracture in his right leg that sidelined him at the end of March. Portland had given up Mason Plumlee to steal Nurk from the Trailblazers, so when he went down they were left with an uninspiring trio of Noah Vonleh, Meyers Leonard, and Ed Davis to pick up the slack.
Admittedly, this isn’t exactly the same situation as the Washington Wizards as Dame Lillard still played for them all season at a high level as well as McCollum, but they were still a young team that was clearly missing an important piece as they limped into the 8th seed.
Nurk was averaging 15.2 points and 10.4 rebounds per game before he went down. He was just building a great rapport with Lillard and the Blazers looked primed for a deep playoff run. Not having him really hurt, just like not having John Wall really hurts the Wizards.
More importantly, after getting Nurk back the next two seasons the Blazers went on to 49 and 53 win seasons, finishing in the 3rd seed the next two seasons. Here’s hoping the Wizards can copy this blueprint for success.
Record at all-star break: 23-33
2016-17 Final record & result : 41-41, Swept in 1st round
2017-18 season record & result: 49-33, Lost in 1st round (Made Western Conference Finals the following year)