Deni Avdija spent last season learning what it feels like to be the centre of an NBA offence. This season, American analysts are warning him to prepare for the opposite: sharing the ball with the most crowded backcourt Portland has fielded in years.
That is the thrust of an analysis piece flagged by ONE, in which US commentators went player by player through the Trail Blazers' roster and assigned each man a job description for 2026-27 — with Avdija's brief the trickiest of them all.
The Israeli forward is coming off a genuine breakout: a career-best 24.2 points, 6.9 rebounds and 6.7 assists a game in 2025-26, numbers that earned him his first NBA All-Star selection and turned him into the identity of the Trail Blazers' offence.
That production helped drag Portland back into the postseason for the first time since 2020-21, via a play-in win over Phoenix in which Avdija scored 40 points. The run ended in the first round, where Victor Wembanyama's Spurs closed out the series 4-1, sealing it with a 114-95 win in Game 5.
The roster around Avdija has since been remade. Portland sent Jerami Grant to Memphis in a deal, completed on June 30, that brought back point guard Ja Morant — a bet on a talented but troubled floor general who is still owed the bulk of a five-year, $197 million contract.
More significant still is the return of Damian Lillard. The franchise great tore his Achilles tendon in the 2025 playoffs with Milwaukee, was waived by the Bucks, and chose to sign a three-year deal to come home to Portland rather than chase a title elsewhere. He is expected to be back on the floor for the start of this season after missing all of the last one.
Add in Jrue Holiday, whom the Trail Blazers have reportedly rebuffed trade offers for, plus Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe, and new head coach Micah Nori inherits a genuine logjam of players who all want the ball in their hands.
That is precisely the problem the American analysis zeroes in on for Avdija. Lillard is pencilled in to stretch the floor and knock down threes, Morant is expected to attack downhill and get to the rim, Toumani Camara is tasked with anchoring the defensive end, and rookie big man Donovan Clingan is asked to hold down the paint on both sides of the ball.
Avdija's assignment does not fit neatly into one column. Rather than running the same shot-creating operation he did en route to his All-Star year, analysts argue he now has to become the connective tissue of the whole roster — scoring when needed, initiating in the frontcourt, defending across positions, and doing it without the same monopoly on possessions.
Ynet's own reporting on the situation strikes a similar note but pushes back slightly on the idea that Avdija is being demoted in importance. Despite the traffic jam of ball-handlers, several US outlets still expect him to remain Portland's primary offensive option, arguing that his all-around game is exactly what lets the roster absorb Lillard and Morant without breaking.
The verdict, in other words, is not that Avdija's season gets smaller — it is that his job gets harder to define. Fewer clean possessions with the ball glued to his hands, potentially, but a wider set of responsibilities and, if the analysts are right, a real chance to be Portland's most valuable player even while touching the ball less.
For a player who only established himself as a franchise cornerstone a year ago, it is an unusual vote of confidence: the Trail Blazers are betting that Avdija's versatility, not his usage rate, is what makes their crowded new roster work.
