Almost every player under contract is back in Portland for workouts

Trail Blazers back in Portland for offseason workouts, 3 weeks before training camp

Labor Day is the unofficial marker of when NBA players begin trickling back to their team's practice facilities to start gearing up for the next season. With training camps across the league starting up in early October, many players give themselves about a month to get back into team mode before official practices begin.

Three weeks before Portland Trail Blazers training camp opens on Oct. 1, the entire team is at the Blazers practice facility in Tualatin this week working out and taking part in 5-on-5 scrimmages.

"Since we have such a young team and guys are trying to learn the system and get used to playing with each other, that factors into why we're here so early," Blazers third-year guard CJ McCollum said. "We're just hungry to play. A lot of guys are young and excited for the chance to prove themselves."

McCollum said veteran players he knows around the league have told him Labor Day was "too early" for them to report back to their team's practice facilities. He added that in his first two years in Portland some vets wouldn't show up until mid-September.

But with one of the youngest rosters in the league and a need to develop continuity quickly, the Blazers are in Portland getting a jump start on preparation. Even veteran wing Gerald Henderson, who is still rehabbing from offseason hip surgery, has reported and is getting treatment while spending time around his new teammates.

The on-court gelling is roughly three days old for this iteration of the Blazers, but the off-court camaraderie started earlier in the offseason. McCollum, Allen Crabbe, Damian Lillard, Tim Frazier and Meyers Leonard -- the few holdovers from last year's team -- spent most of the offseason in Portland. When a handful of newcomers arrived in late August, McCollum and Lillard started discussing a team trip, a bonding experience where the team could find equal parts workouts and relaxation.

"Obviously with the change in identity with the team, Dame being the cornerstone with the franchise, our organization kind of building around him in the 23 to 27 [years-old] range ... We felt like it was important for us to get acquainted with each other," McCollum said.

Lillard initially proposed a team getaway and McCollum came up with the idea of San Diego, a warm-weather leisure destination without the distractions "of non-basketball related activities" offered by more common NBA vacation spots like Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

A group of 10 Blazers players hit San Diego for a little less than a week. Lillard secured court time at San Diego State University and the Blazers planned team workouts both at the school's campus and on the beach.

"So we'd be able to work out and kind of relax, and just kind of chill, go out to dinner, go out to lunch," McCollum explained of the trip, which including attending a San Diego Padres game at Petco Park. "Just kind of bonding a little bit with the new teammates. Felt like everybody needed to get accustomed to each other."

There was basketball and workouts mixed in, but this was a group of guys having fun before the grind of the NBA season truly begins. Just take a look at how often Tim Frazier was dancing for proof.

Lillard spearheaded the idea of a trip, the type of leadership the franchise would hope for from a player recently given a $120 million contract extension. Lillard has also been a driving force in organizing voluntary workouts at the practice facility. McCollum said this type of leadership is nothing new for Lillard.

"He was the point guard as a rookie starting three years in a row, 82 games," said McCollum. "They gave him the keys and he's earned it and he's proven himself on a day-to-day basis. I don't see that his leadership is going to significantly change when he's been leading this entire time."

"I think it's just more about he doesn't have to worry about stepping on anybody's toes," McCollum added. "If he sees something he doesn't like he can speak on it. If he sees something he likes, he can speak on it. From what I've seen he's been a good leader even before all those guys left. Nothing's really changed."

Once the team returned from the San Diego getaway, unofficial practices began in earnest in Portland with the full team in attendance and scrimmaging 5-on-5 in the mornings, save for veteran Mike Miller, who is likely to get waived without ever donning a Blazers jersey.

The workouts and scrimmages are voluntary, but attendance has not been an issue. If the San Diego trip and practice participation are any indication, this group of players enjoys being around one another. However, with less than two months before opening night, McCollum isn't ready to rush the final days of the offseason life.

"I cherish these moments when I can come home after a workout and put my feet up and not have to worry about flying to the east coast for 4 (games) in 5 nights," he said. "Just got to take it slow and enjoy this time and be ready when it's time to go."

-- Mike Richman

http://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/i...he_practice_court_3_weeks_b.html#incart_river

 

That's what being a Blazer is all about

 

Blazers Get To Know Each Other In San Diego

By Casey Holdahl

The NBA season, to put it simply, is long. Roughly seven months elapse between the start of training camp at the end of September and completion of the regular season in mid-April. And during those seven months, it’s not at all uncommon for teammates will see each other almost every day, whether it’s during practices, meetings, flights, bus rides, appearances or any number of other events that fill the time in between playing 82 games.

Given how much time they spend together, it’s reasonable to assume individual players might prefer to protect their alone time in the run up to training camp. But it’s precisely because they’ll be together so much in the coming months that players on Portland’s roster decided to put together a meet up in San Diego for a week of workouts and, more importantly, some get-to-know-you time.

“I thought it would be good for us all to get together and know each other before we came in here for camp,” said Lillard, who came up with the idea. “Just getting familiar and getting comfortable with each other.”

That hasn’t been much of a concern that last few seasons, as the core of Portland’s roster had been relatively consistent since Lillard and Meyers Leonard were selected with the 6th and 11th picks, respectively, of the the 2012 NBA Draft. But with 11 new players under contract, the holdovers from last year’s team thought it wise to touch bases outside of a gym before training camp.

“I thought it would be a good idea so I reached out to all the guys on the team to see who could make it and who was available,” said Lillard. “Eleven guys made it out, the guys who could make it out made it out. We worked out together every morning, we hooped together in the afternoon. I took everybody out to lunch, went to dinner a few times, we went to a Padres game together. Just kind of bonding and putting some work in together, building that foundation, because we’re going to be together.”

Which is an understatement. Playing 82 games in six months pencils out to roughly one game every two days, with practices and travel eating up most of the time in between. And while there are technically “off days” in which the team neither plays, travels nor practices, most players are still coming in to get treatment, lift weights or receive one-on-one instruction from the coaching staff.

So in actuality, there are really very few instances in which a player will go 24 hours without being around his teammates. But while it’s somewhat paradoxical to make a point of spending additional time with a group of individuals who you’ll already be in close quarters with for the next half year, it sets the Trail Blazers up to hit the ground running once camp starts rather than spending the first days of the season building rapport.

“Some of these guys, I’d never even shook their hand before,” said Meyers Leonard. “You play against them, but you want to get to know them a little bit, because once you know each other and trust each other on more of a personal level, it’s much easier to be communicative on the court and have better chemistry and just kind of know each other outside of basketball as well. It was a phenomenal week.”

While working out and playing pickup games against each other is a good way for new teammates to better understand each other from an on-court perspective, it’s arguably less important, at least at this point, than getting their personal relationships to a point where they feel comfortable challenging each other. That’s especially true players like Mason Plumlee, Al-Farouq Aminu and Ed Davis, who join the Trail Blazers this season after playing with the Nets, Mavericks and Lakers, respectively, last year.

“Playing together, you’ll get that in training camp,” said Plumlee. “But to spend time, to go to lunch, to go to dinner, just get to know each other personally is very valuable.”

It’s even small things, like knowing what name a new player prefers to go by or what kind of music he prefers, can go a long way toward smoothing out some of the initial awkwardness that goes along with meeting new coworkers for the first time. That’s not to say that a week in San Diego is going to instantly smooth over the rough patches the Trail Blazers are sure to endure this season, but it at least gets the process of establishing a culture well underway.



“It doesn’t mean it’s all going to be sunshine and rainbows,” said Plumlee. “Every team has trials and it can go one of two ways: it can either make you better or it can break you. San Diego was more getting to know each other, having conversations off the court, but you really get to know each other during the season.”

Throughout the season, a team as young as the 2015-16 Trail Blazers are going to need to hold each other accountable in the absence of long-time veterans, and that’s much easier to do when there’s an established interpersonal relationship. After all, it can be a bit hard to take advice and/or criticism from someone whose nature and motives are unknown. But if there’s a baseline of respect, it’s much easier to be receptive of whatever the message might be.

“I came to the gym yesterday and Luis Montero was playing one-on-one and I jumped in, just challenged him a little bit,” said Lillard. “Like, I got real physical with him and I went hard on him, kind of beat him up a bit in the one-on-one. You could tell he looked a little shocked.

“But now, me and him just had a long conversation about international play, stuff like that. You can tell that me being around instead of trying to be a star — I get my workout then I disappear or I lift separate from everybody else, not communicating — you can tell it really has an impact. Now when I walk up to him and I’m like ‘Luis, you got to have your ass in the corner! You got to be there!’ he’s just gonna say ‘Alright Dame, I got you’ instead of him thinking I’m just coming down on him because I think I’m a star. I think that’s why being around each other is so important. Now we can hold each other accountable.”

Which one hopes will be an enduring legacy of that trip to San Diego throughout the coming months and years in Rip City.

“When Wes (Matthews) would yell at me, I could take it because I know Wes,” said Lillard. “Me and Wes are boys and we had been on the same team for three years, so I could take that from Wes. If one of these dudes come in here and try to yell at me, I don’t know how I’d respond to it if I had never met them before. We spent that time in San Diego and now I can come in here like ‘What up Ed?’ shake his hand, shove him, whatever because we shared a week together. We actually spent time around each other. It definitely helps, and this definitely feels like a different environment. It just feels so fresh, everybody is so receptive.”

http://forwardcenter.net/blazers-get-to-know-each-other-in-san-diego/