For talented Blazers, the next step will be the hardest yet

Wow. That was some ascension last season.

The Blazers went from 41 victories to 54 and tied for the second-best record in the West. Brandon Roy was an All-Star again and finished 10th in the league scoring. Despite Martell Webster missing all but five minutes of last season, Portland became the first team to win 50 games with four rookies playing at least 50 games.

Finally, they did all this with the second-youngest roster in the league on opening night and while staring into the glare of expectations as a team that was supposed break through.

But this just in: Yawn.

Going from .500 to playoff-good is a nice accomplishment and right on schedule in Portland. But it's nothing compared to the summit the Trail Blazers face in trying to go from the first-round team to championship contention, the seemingly short push from 54 wins to the neighborhood of 60 actually being a greater challenge than the 41 to 54.

"Or getting back to 54," coach Nate McMillan said.

The Blazers are targets now, not part of the chase pack, and the 13-game improvement came with good health, minus only the Webster foot injury and Greg Oden missing 21 games. It was with the symmetry of several players posting career years at once.

On the other hand, they won't be the baby Blazers anymore. Not with the benefit of playoff experience, and the so-called career years were only through the moment, not the ceiling for Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge, Oden, et al. Every indication is that 2008-09 was more coming attraction than maxing out.

"That's our challenge now -- going from a pretty good team to a very good team," Roy said. "You have those elite teams like the Lakers and Boston, Cleveland and the Spurs, and we want to get to that level. And that's tough. Those teams are there because of years of experience, which we don't have. But we feel like we have the personnel to hopefully continue to take those steps to become a very good team."

Blazers Land a Free Agent After Hedo Turkoglu changed his mind about signing and the Jazz matched the offer sheet for Paul Millsap, Portland signed veteran point guard Andre Miller. Read more ... Roy's Thirst to Win Could Bring Titles Roy's drive to reach the level of star status shared by LeBron James and Kobe Bryant will only benefit Portland. Read more... Accelerating the Aging Process The Trail Blazers, loaded with young players, added the experience of 33-year-old Miller and 36-year-old Juwan Howard as free agents. Read more...

The worries are whether McMillan can find enough playing time to keep a deep roster happy, whether Oden can stay healthy in his second season, and whether the defense can become the force necessary to win in the Playoffs. Within the Blazers, the push is for more consistency on defense.

The encouragement: everything else.

Not only should Portland be better because Oden, Nicolas Batum, Jerryd Bayless and Rudy Fernandez are past the rookie learning curve, but the Blazers addressed their biggest need by adding the court sense of point guard Andre Miller via free agency.

So much for that deflating summer of losing out on Hedo Turkoglu and Paul Millsap.

"I look at this as Phase 2 of me coming to Portland," McMillan said during the preseason of his fifth campaign with the Trail Blazers. "We wanted to develop and transform this team and build it through the draft and build it through free agency, and we knew that we needed to be patient. We wanted to bring the respect, the pride back to Portland throughout the league and win ballgames.

"We've done all that and we've gotten to the playoffs. Now for us, we're still young, but we're not going through that developing phase. We are trying to take that next step to be a consistent winner, to win our division, to go deeper into the playoffs and eventually win a championship. So, yeah, this is a difficult step. You've had some success. And now to maintain it and continue to be one of the top teams in the West, it's tough to do it every year."

Such is the encouraging life as a Blazer that even one of the potential looming problems -- the challenge of distributing minutes on a team at least two-deep at most every position -- is one of the reasons they are still moving forward despite the big jump of 2008-09. McMillan was into exhibition play and saying he was still unsure about starters at three positions: Miller vs. Steve Blake at point guard, Webster vs. Batum vs. Fernandez at small forward and Oden vs. Joel Przybilla at center. Fifty-four wins, and 60 percent of the opening lineup could turn over. Or, the coach plainly stated, Miller may have been the key offseason acquisition, but he may also be a reserve.

It's all part of moving forward. All part of a season when improving by six or seven games could be harder than improving by 13 games before.

1. ODEN...AT LAST? Greg Oden, after bulking up last season to withstand the rigors of bruising inside play, dropped about 15 pounds during the summer and was quicker, and better, in training camp and preseason. 2. NEW COMMITMENT TO DEFENSE Portland finished 17th in shooting defense in 2008-09 and emphasized the importance of improving on that side of the ball. 3. SHUFFLE THE MINUTES Locker-room chemistry will become an issue as coach Nate McMillan tackles the impossible task of keeping everyone happy with playing time. -- Scott Howard-Cooper