{"id":620457,"date":"2026-02-23T19:38:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T19:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/620457\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T19:38:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T19:38:15","slug":"is-deni-avdija-the-trail-blazers-point-guard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/620457\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Deni Avdija the Trail Blazers\u2019 Point Guard?"},"content":{"rendered":"

For most of the 2025-26 season the Portland Trail Blazers have enjoyed the breakout of newly-minted NBA All-Star Deni Avdija. Avdija has been struggling with back issues<\/a> lately. Blazers fans have now seen their team with Deni full-strength, hobbled, and absent entirely. Safe to say, more Deni is better than less.<\/p>\n

Having said that, we\u2019ve been sitting on this question from the Blazer\u2019s Edge Mailbag for a few weeks now. Let\u2019s bring it up today.<\/p>\n

Is Deni Avdija really a star? No additions. I\u2019m going to leave it at that.<\/p>\n

A couple of thoughts come to mind immediately.<\/p>\n

First, Deni is the player you\u2019re asking about, right? We\u2019re not having this debate about the 10th-12th guys in the rotation, or even the 3rd starter. So there\u2019s something to him. The fact that you\u2019re identifying this issue in the first place indicates he\u2019s at least near stardom.<\/p>\n

Second, 24.4 points, 7.0 rebounds, and 6.6 assists is pretty inarguable. Whatever we think of Deni or don\u2019t, those numbers exist. He\u2019s in the Top 20 in points and assists per game, deep enough in the season to forecast that he\u2019s going to stay there. No matter what your definition of \u201cstar\u201d is, Avdija would qualify as the top starter for at least half of NBA teams. That\u2019s pretty elite company.<\/p>\n

And he plays defense too? Sold.<\/p>\n

Avdija isn\u2019t a superstar yet. He may never become one. In my mind that label is reserved for MVP candidates. You can\u2019t place him with Luka, Giannis, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, or Joker. That\u2019s one boundary. Time provides a second. Deni is new at this. We haven\u2019t seen him excel at this rate for even one complete season, let alone multiple. Also I do think there\u2019s something to the \u201cbest player on a bad\/mediocre team\u201d theory. Avdija is averaging 25 points per game because he\u2019s THE option. Shaedon Sharpe can score but doesn\u2019t\/can\u2019t control the ball. Jerami Grant gives you 20 but he\u2019s an offensive endpoint, not at the heart of the play. Deni has all the space and permission he needs to ring up stats. If he gets on a more crowded roster, especially with a focused and contending team, you may see his scoring drop, which would also impact people\u2019s opinion of him. Personally, I don\u2019t hang Deni\u2019s stardom on points produced, so I\u2019m not bothered.<\/p>\n

After saying all that, I think this question misses the point. Debating whether or not Avdija is a star may be an interesting theoretical exercise, but it\u2019s a matter of definition and opinion. What kind of star Avdija is matters much more.<\/p>\n

My specific question, the one I\u2019d put before Blazer\u2019s Nation today, is whether Avdija is a star point guard or something else. We\u2019ve touched on this during several Mailbag questions in the past, but it\u2019s time to have it out for real.<\/p>\n

Generally, I\u2019ve observed that as the Blazers have gotten healthier this season and returned actual point guards to the lineup, both team tempo and Avdija\u2019s own play have gotten slower. Deni is still a weapon when he\u2019s not controlling the ball, but he\u2019s not THAT Deni.<\/p>\n

Before the season started, I never would have envisioned Avdija as a point guard. Right now, I\u2019m seriously considering it. You can only see so many double-digit assists games coupled with height and decent perimeter defense before you go, \u201cHmmmm\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Turnover rate is one of the strong arguments against the proposition. Avdija ranks third in the league in turnovers per 100 possessions with 5.4. He has good company there; Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, James Harden, Jaylen Brown, and Cade Cunningham are in the same neighborhood. In some ways, the stat is less an indicator of carelessness and more a measure of who gets to handle the ball a lot. It\u2019d still benefit Deni and the Blazers if he could curb that a little. Even a turnover per game less would help.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also an open question about whether Avdija is really an offense-runner when that offense doesn\u2019t consist of, \u201cDrive to the bucket, get fouled, or pass to an open guy against a collapsing defense.\u201d Even by modern NBA standards, Portland\u2019s current attack is pretty straight-line. Executing it well is enough to get you from bad to good, but good to great may require more thought (and precision).<\/p>\n

Despite those caveats, this reality remains: if Avdija is a point guard, he can get by with being a very good player without the burden of having to be stellar. His height, scoring ability, assist production, and defense will give the Blazers natural advantages over most opponents. The same is not true at small forward or even shooting guard, where he needs that 25, 7, and 7 (or more) to stand out.<\/p>\n

The inverse is also true. If he\u2019s a point guard, Deni will probably be one of the better ones without ever cracking the Top 4. There will always be primary ball-handlers who are better than he at passing, scoring, shooting, and running a game. As a secondary passer and wing defender, Avdija has the potential to become one of the top-of-the-league guys over time. That doesn\u2019t mean he\u2019ll make it, but that door is open.<\/p>\n

For those reasons, I\u2019d shift this question away from, \u201cIs Deni a star?\u201d (he is as much as anybody) to, \u201cIs he capable of being a point guard and\/or a star point guard?\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than answering that definitively, because I think we\u2019re still gathering data, I want to throw that question out to readers today. Do you foresee Deni Avdija becoming the overt\u2014or at least default\u2014point guard for the Blazers over the next couple of seasons? Why or why not? Will that be a good thing?<\/p>\n

Enjoy that discussion in the comments section below and don\u2019t forget to send your own questions to blazersub@gmail.com. We\u2019ll try to answer as many as possible!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For most of the 2025-26 season the Portland Trail Blazers have enjoyed the breakout of newly-minted NBA All-Star…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,37787,38295,6,687,471,3967,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-620457","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-portland-trail-blazers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blazers","10":"tag-blazers-analysis","11":"tag-blazers-mailbags","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-portland","14":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","15":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","16":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116121639650485383","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}