Toumani Camara and the Blazers Will Send You to Hell

Portland's second-year wing is leading a defensive surge in the Rose City, and might be the key piece of Portland's unconventional rebuild.

“It all starts with #33,” said Blazers guard Scoot Henderson after the Portland Trail Blazers beat down the Indiana Pacers on Tuesday night.

The “it” Henderson speaks of is the Blazers defense, which ranks No. 1 in the NBA over the past 12 games. Portland is putting teams in handcuffs; Indiana scored just 89 points on Wednesday while the Kings barely cracked 100 last night in yet another Blazers win — their 10th in 11 games.

And the “33” that Henderson mentions is second-year forward Toumani Camara, whose All-Defense campaign started slightly tongue-in-cheek from Blazers fans… but gains legitimate momentum every time the 24 year-old swats, stifles, or swipes another NBA star.

Tyrese Haliburton was the latest victim of Camara’s clamps, as he was held scoreless against the Blazers — that’s zero points. Without bucket. None of them.

Oh, and that was the second night of a back-to-back for Portland. Camara played 45 minutes the night prior, too. Demon.

There’s a defensive resurgence happening in Portland. I don’t think it’s a fluke, either; the Blazers have been busting asses the past three weeks and appear to siphon joy from all the asses they bust. Gross.

While Toumani Camara is not producing an elite defense by himself, he’s leading the charge, spearheading a new potential defensive power in Portland.

I’m not sure what Portland’s path forward is, or where this road will lead them. But it’s become very clear that Camara should play a chief role in guiding the expedition.

Numbers + Eye Test = Everybody Wins

There’s something for everyone in Toumani Camara’s statistical profile. He leads the NBA in charges drawn with 21 — that one’s for the “grind it out” fans.

He also has 14th-best Defensive Estimated Plus/Minus among non-big men — that one’s for the numbers nerds.

Over his 119 career games, Portland is 6.8 points better per 100 when he’s on the floor than when he isn’t. That one is for everybody.

He also pops off the screen whenever you watch the Blazers play; here he is making life tough on Malik Monk last night, then deftly avoiding a foul when Monk tries to draw contact:

Toumani Camara finished the game 2/13 from the field and was still invaluable to Portland’s win. He snagged a career-high 14 rebounds, including 5 on the offensive glass. He extended possessions. He switched onto Zach LaVine or Keegan Murray when necessary.

That’s essentially Camara’s role on defense — just do what’s necessary. And, almost without fail, he does.

A Literal Rising Star

After initially being left off the Rising Stars Challenge roster at All-Star Weekend in the Bay Area, Camara was added to the roster to replace an injured player. And now the league gets what it wants — Toumani and teammate Scoot Henderson in primetime. That is what the league wants, whether you like it or not.

Scoot’s attitude toward the Rising Stars Challenge makes me so happy — yes, please go out there and guard 94 feet. Trying is cool! FUCK nonchalance!

Of course, this quote was said in good humor, but to me, it’s still a sign that Scoot and Toumani are bought into their identity as players — and a team — being defense-first, irritable (complimentary) guys who are nightmares to match up with.

I Really Do Not Want to Give Chauncey Billups Credit

But I am left with no choice. It doesn’t feel good, for the record, especially because earlier this year, I think I said that Chauncey Billups should be tried at the Hague. As humans, all we can do is grow and admit past wrongs. It seems Billups has authored this turnaround.

In Jason Quick’s latest piece at The Athletic, he described how Billups has developed a propensity for calling team meetings and, in essence, telling everyone they suck.

The first meeting, held in late December in the office of coach Chauncey Billups, involved a direct challenge to point guard Scoot Henderson.

The second — and third — meetings were in early January and involved Billups delivering brutally honest assessments to Shaedon Sharpe about his defense, eventually leading to Sharpe being stripped of his starting role.

And the fourth meeting, held in mid-January during a five-game losing streak, featured Billups confronting each player, starting with Anfernee Simons … then Jerami Grant … then Deandre Ayton … down the roster … and asking them a question: Can you handle being called out by a teammate?

I am sad to admit that this is what good coaches do. They challenge their players to maximize their talents. They relate to players as humans, but don’t merely try to win over their affections with likeability. I don’t know if Billups decided to start tearing into his players because he saw his future job prospects slipping away in Portland, but whatever caused this… it worked. This is where the defensive buy-in you see nightly actually starts.

Billups also fully trusts Toumani Camara to inhabit the star stopper role that every NBA team is desperate to employ. Each night, it’s a foregone conclusion that Camara will guard the opponent’s best scorer. “He’s the type of guy everyone wants,” Billups said — and he’s right. I imagine the Blazers got about 20 calls about Camara leading up to this week’s trade deadline, and I’m glad they ignored every one.

Year four is often when NBA players find their footing in the NBA and start to brush up with the entirety of the potential they possess. I suppose it’s not so crazy to think coaches can do the same. Maybe Billups has, simply, become a better coach.

I’m not ready to crown Billups as the clear coaching answer in Portland — he’s been generally bad for the past three years. But he’s closer than he ever has been to winning my favor, a sentiment which I think is echoed by a majority of Blazers fans. All it took was him being a little bit more of an asshole.

Portland’s Path Forward

The Portland Trail Blazers have a future… I’m just not 100% sure how that future will look.

Portland’s rebuild is odd; Joe Cronin has built a competent roster, it’s just missing a centerpiece. While Detroit, Orlando, San Antonio and other rebuilding teams possess a star with whom they are attempting complement with roster pieces… Portland occupies the opposite situation. The roster is pretty good if it were complementing a star… but that star doesn’t actually exist yet. Is this an easier path to contention? I have no idea — because I can’t think of other rebuilds that have unfolded this way.

There are pieces of a contending team in Portland — Camara perhaps the most obvious, as he’s already grown into an All-Defense caliber stopper, a vital part of any championship roster. But his offensive game relies more on catch-and-shoot threes and cutting than much self-creation. Barring a creation leap (which I do believe is possible, but I’m not relying on) Camara probably tracks as a Bruce Brown-type on a contending team. That’s a damn good player — Denver wouldn’t have won the 2023 Finals without him — but Denver wouldn’t have been near the NBA Finals without Nikola Jokic.

Another one of those pieces is Deni Avdija, who has surpassed expectations in year one of his Portland tenure. He averaged 18/8/4 in January, his best month so far; not massive counting stats, but Avdija morphed into the offensive engine for Portland, distributing, setting the tempo, working as the foundation. His 69.0 (sick) touches per game were by far the most on the team in January, followed by Scoot Henderson at 61.

Avdija’s limitations as scorer in the half-court will limit his ceiling as a playmaker. But at 24, he’s already a dang good connecting piece who has been leading the offense of a winning basketball team for the past two months.

Donovan Clingan is the type of interior defender teams build schemes around. Exhibit A:

Guard Damian Lillard on the perimeter, then recover in time to decimate a Brook Lopez layup attempt. That’ll play.

As we move past the NBA trade deadline, and DeAndre Ayton is no longer auditioning for teams around the league, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Clingan and Ayton share center minutes almost evenly. Clingan is, like all rookie centers, learning as he goes. But it’s been pretty obvious from day one that Clingan is a defensive force in waiting.

Then there’s Shaedon Sharpe, who is the lynchpin of this rebuild. He might be Portland’s fifth-best player right now — but the casual walk-up threes, the pullback midrange jumpers, the axis-adjusting dunks all point to a package of skills that is reserved for the top-tier scorers in the league. He could very soon be Portland’s best player. He could very soon be Portland’s star.

He just DeMar DeRozan’d… DeMar DeRozan.

Sharpe is averaging 17.4 points on 54.9% true shooting in his third season. The scoring numbers keep ticking up, and the next challenge is whether Sharpe can hover around 20 points a night with consistency.

Portland’s recent success stems from everyone playing their role to perfection and accepting the challenges that Chauncey Billups presents to them on the defensive end.

What does this culminate in? Right now, the best defense in basketball and a shouting chance at the play-in tournament (Portland is just three games out of the nine-seed in the West). That’s not nothing. Success, even in short bursts, is massive for player development.

Pieces of a Whole

To recap, Portland has an elite perimeter defender, an elite rim protector, an in-between connector, a 21 year-old scorer with thousands of buckets still locked within him, and plenty of veteran options who actually seem like they (usually) care about playing in Portland — Anfernee Simons, Jerami Grant and DeAndre Ayton.

That’s cool — and for right now, I think it’s enough. Blazers fans were irate at the front office for standing pat at the deadline, a sentiment that I understand but start to share less the more I think about it. My guess is that the offers for the (very expensive) services of Ayton, Grant, and Simons were less than appealing. So the team decided to keep its veterans and attempt high-quality basketball this year… which doesn’t sound nearly as crazy now as it did four months ago.

Portland’s rebuild does not look like a traditional NBA rebuild. The last piece of this puzzle is a cornerstone talent, and that’s why the franchise’s spot is so precarious — Toumani Camara, Deni Avdija, Donovan Clingan, and (probably) Scoot Henderson can all contribute to a playoff roster… but Portland probably isn’t a playoff roster until it finds an All-Star. Is Joe Cronin patient enough to keep around the good NBA players on the roster, even if the team results year over year aren’t super encouraging? Can he find that star in the 2025 Draft? They’re certainly up for grabs, if the scouting reports are to be believed.

Most teams search for elite role players to flank their star — the Blazers are searching for a star to slot in and put the finishing touches on a roster full of sublime role players.

Right now, there doesn’t need to be an answer for what this team can become, because the growth that fans hoped to see from Camara, Henderson, Avdija, and Sharpe has been evident.

The product is incomplete in Portland right now; but even a work-in-progress can be thrilling, and the Blazers are providing thrills in excess lately.