Portland Trail Blazers: Best Non-Elite Team with a Shot at the NBA Championship?

The Portland Trail Blazers are rolling along quite nicely ever since their acquisition of Gerald Wallace, and are looking like a very dangerous team when the playoffs roll around.

The NBA has a very distinct structure when it comes to who is contending for the NBA championship in any given year. There are the elite teams, like the Lakers, Spurs, Celtics, Bulls, Mavericks, Thunder, Heat and maybe the Magic (they are teetering on the edge at this point, but they still have Dwight Howard), and there are the fringe teams, like the Hawks, Blazers, Nuggets and Hornets.

These fringe teams are headed in one of two directions. Either they are falling out of the elite, like the Nuggets due to the loss of Carmelo Anthony, and the Hawks, due to the reshuffling of power at the top of the Eastern Conference. Or, they are attempting to break into the elite, as the Hornets and Blazers are looking to do.

The NBA, which is very cyclical to many teams (save for the Lakers and Celtics, who seem to be good for a decade, have three or four down years and jump right back up) now sees the Blazers back on the upswing, and with their last playoff series win coming in 2000, it couldn't come any sooner to the people of Portland.

It seems for the past few years the Blazers have been a good team, but just unable to keep it all together in the end, mostly due to injuries, which leads to overworked players, more injuries and the lack of depth.

These injury-riddled seasons have kept the Blazers down in the playoffs, as they have suffered two straight first-round losses, to the Suns in six games last year and the Rockets in six games in 2009.

Both years saw the Blazers having to rely on young players (Nicholas Batum and Martell Webster), over-matched players (Joel Przybilla versus Yao Ming, Andre Miller versus Steve Nash) and over-worked players (LaMarcus Aldridge 40 minutes per game in both series, Brandon Roy and Steve Blake 40 MPG in 2009).

Their injuries eventually caught up with them, and the fact that they were relying mostly on Joel Przybilla and a few minutes from Greg Oden in 2009 followed by Marcus Camby and Juwan Howard as their big men alternatives to a not-yet-excellent Aldridge ultimately became their downfall.

This year, however, things are slightly different. They still have piled up injuries, as Greg Oden has been out yet again for his second knee surgery in three years and Brandon Roy had surgery on both of his knees in January, but something is different.

All of the players who were forced to take over for the injured players in the past are looking like legitimate NBA starters at this point, and LaMarcus Aldridge is playing like a man possessed.

The aforementioned Batum, who is probably the defensive weak link on the starting lineup right now is still reliable on the other side of the floor, as he can easily score 10-15 points a game, and gives the team a second threat from three-point land.

The veterans Marcus Camby and Andre Miller have learned that they don't have to try to do too much with this team, and have settled nicely into their respective roles, as Camby is a defensive center extraordinaire and Miller is dishing out dimes like he's 25 again, and running the offense with the savvy of a grizzled vet.

Wesley Matthews, who was signed away from Utah for $34 million last summer, despite playing only a year in the league, has blossomed into one of their most important players.

Gerald Wallace, acquired from Charlotte for draft picks, and a water bottle that they claimed contained Michael Jordan's Secret Stuff, looks to have become the missing piece to the puzzle, as they have won eight of 13 games since his arrival.

When it comes to the playoffs, this team has two secret weapons: a much-improved defense from last year and the best sixth man in the league.

While their defenders individually seem to be average at best, save for a select few, as a unit they are one of the best in the league.

Since Wallace came over, they are holding opponents to 90.7 points per game, which, if stretched out over an entire season, would be tops in the league; otherwise they are still an impressive eighth.

Their sixth man, the Portland crowd, is loud and energetic enough to swing any home game in the Blazers' favor.

If they were to steal one of the first two games of a playoff series on the road, and then come back home, I am of the belief that no team could win two close games against this Portland team with their dedicated crowd.

It is starting to look as if the Blazers will end up anywhere between fifth and seventh in the playoffs, depending on the fortunes of the Hornets and Nuggets, meaning they could play the Thunder, Mavericks or Lakers.

Out of those three, they would be best suited, and probably most likely to beat the Mavericks in a seven-game series.

Dallas has a history of playoff disappointments and is an aging team that would be given fits by the inside-outside game of Portland, along with their ever-improving defense.

After the first round, it is all up to matchups, luck, skill, heart and officiating (just kidding...but not really. Am I right, Mavericks fans?).

On top of all this good news, Brandon Roy is back. While you can still hear his patella scraping against his tibia every time he jumps, he is starting to slide back into his old ways of being a great basketball player.

If they can successfully incorporate him into their lineup, they could just pull off an upset, and then another, and another and another until they are hoisting the Larry O'Brien Trophy in June.