After roughly five months of offseason, the Portland Trail Blazers officially started their 2018-19 season Monday afternoon at their annual Media Day at the Moda Center. While what happens on the court is by far the most important variable when it comes to running an NBA franchise, there's a whole lot of off-court work that has to be done in order to prepare for the next eight months, and a large chunk of that gets squared away at media day. The team will also have their first official practice, but before that, there's photos and videos to be taken and item to be signed.
There's also the interview portion, where collected media get first crack at players, coaches and staff before training camp gets underway. Between players being more accessible during the offseason than they've ever been thanks to social media and the fact that nothing of substance has happened since summer league, this year's media day interviews didn't really produce much news, but it was a good opportunity get a baseline for player and coach mindset at the start of a long campaign.
So here's the 2018 batch of Trail Blazers Media Day interviews (Caleb Swanigan, Nik Stauskus and Gary Trent Jr. didn't get around to the media portion)...
NEIL OLSHEY