featured-image

Four Trail Blazers Make Sports Illustrated's Top 100 Players

With the start of training camp less than two weeks away (!!!), the yearly preseason NBA player rankings are starting to make their way onto the web. First up, Ben Golliver and Rob Mahoney over at Sports Illustrated, who have put together their Top 100 players, an endeavor they describe as "an exhaustive exercise that seeks to define who will be the league's best players in the 2018-19 season."

Of course, we're only interested in where members of the 2018-19 Trail Blazers show up on the list, so let's get down to it. One note: I'm not going to post the entire synopsis for each player in hopes that you'll at least click through once to Sports Illustrated's site.

• First up, starting forward Al-Farouq Aminu is the first Trail Blazer to make the list at No. 81 after being unranked last year...

Aminu comes in ahead of Boston guard Terry Rozier at No. 82 and behind Oklahoma City guard Dennis Schröder at No. 80.

• Next up, starting center Jusuf Nurkić, who comes in at No. 64, five spots better than his ranking going into last season...

Nurkić is ranked directly ahead of Clippers forward Tobias Harris at No. 65 and right behind Toronto center Jonas Valanciunas at No. 63.

• Then there's starting guard CJ McCollum, who comes in at No. 33 on this year's ranking, six spots better than last year's ranking...

McCollum is ahead of Utah guard and 2018 Rookie of the Year runner-up Donovan Mitchell at No. 34 and behind Charlotte guard Kemba Walker at No. 32.

• And finally, we come to Trail Blazers starting guard Damian Lillard, who is coming off a first-team All-NBA season, just the third in franchise history. Despite that, he wasn't able to make the Top 10 on SI's list, though his No. 15 ranking this year is two spot better than his ranking at this time last year...

Lillard comes in directly ahead of Boston center Al Horford at No. 16 and directly behind Utah center Rudy Gobert at No. 14.