Portland Trailblazers: Your 2011-12 NBA Champions

Their players were, on average, the youngest team in the league by far at 24.06 years, 1.29 years younger than 29th youngest Seattle (0.55 years separates #29 from #22). The players also had the least amount of experience at 2.87 years, 0.60 years less than 29th least experienced Chicago (0.46 years separates #29 from #20). This was a team that didn't have a front court player who cracked double-digits in scoring the year before. Their one lone bright spot for the season was Brandon Roy, a promising but hardly explosive sophomore combo guard who missed 25 games his rookie season due to injuries. Well, at least if they’re terrible, they’ll get another high draft pick, right?

A 13-game win streak, a run at the playoffs in the most competitive conference in NBA history, a 41-41 final record, and one All-Star later, the lesson to be learned is never doubt coach Nate McMillan. This is the same Nate McMillan who took the 2004-05 Seattle Supersonics, another team that was supposed to be one of if not the worst in the league that year, to 50-32 and pushed the eventual NBA champs San Antonio to more games than any other team in the Western Conference playoffs. If any coach has proven he can get much more out of a team than anyone expects, it's Nate McMillan (and if any coach has proven he can get much less, it’s Larry Brown -- good luck, Charlotte!).

Yet, it goes further than just the final record. McMillan succeeded while still giving his young players heavy minutes and developing their talents. Brandon Roy played his way into the All-Star game. LaMarcus Aldridge proved to be a force in the paint. Travis Outlaw started to realize his enormous athletic potential and became a game-changing sixth man. Martell Webster and James Jones found their roles and spread the floor. Even Channing Frye started re-discovering the potential he had in New York before Larry Brown stomped out his confidence, averaging 16 and 10 in the last five games of the season (admittedly against the JV players most teams trot out at that time of the year).

The only real disappointment was that neither Jarrett Jack, Steve Blake, nor Sergio Rodriguez could play well enough to claim the starting point guard role. Yet looking outside the light of the rest of the team, one could argue that they're just developing at a normal pace. There's still a lot of potential there, particularly with the one they call "Spanish Chocolate" (… that's a dumb name).

Of course, the big addition this year is the player they were hoping for last year: Greg Oden, the 7-foot center with hops like he's got springs in his legs. As with Bynum, Oden's very presence will mean the post defense is locked down. Unlike Bynum, Oden has the athleticism of an Olympic high-jumper (also unlike babyface Bynum, Oden is 1000 years old

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