{"id":761241,"date":"2026-06-15T00:21:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T00:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/761241\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T00:21:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T00:21:13","slug":"blazers-dont-crack-top-16-in-ultra-early-2026-27-power-rankings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/761241\/","title":{"rendered":"Blazers Don\u2019t Crack Top 16 in Ultra-Early 2026-27 Power Rankings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1bij9g78 _1mt21p01\">The Blazers are one of this summer\u2019s biggest wild cards thanks to new owner Tom Dundon, who executed sweeping layoffs in May, was embroiled in PR mess after PR mess after reports surfaced about his cost-cutting measures, and has yet to name a coach.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1bij9g78 _1mt21p01\">Will Dundon pursue a splashy addition or take a more deliberate approach?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1bij9g78 _1mt21p01\">The good news: The Blazers, who just snapped a four-year playoff drought, have their most important players under contract for 2026-27 and will welcome back franchise icon <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/6606\/damian-lillard\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Damian Lillard<\/a> from an Achilles injury.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1bij9g78 _1mt21p01\">While a return trip to the playoffs will be the goal, Portland still needs more shooting to compete with the West\u2019s best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Blazers are one of this summer\u2019s biggest wild cards thanks to new owner Tom Dundon, who executed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":761242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,37787,559,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,6],"class_list":["post-761241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-clippers","tag-basketball","tag-blazers-analysis","tag-clippers","tag-la","tag-la-clippers","tag-laclippers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-clippers","tag-losangeles","tag-losangelesclippers","tag-nba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116751268852919580","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761241","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=761241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}