{"id":867337,"date":"2026-10-25T10:33:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T10:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/867337\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T10:33:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T10:33:16","slug":"deni-avdija-on-track-to-become-one-of-the-greatest-in-portland-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/867337\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Deni Avdija on track to become one of the greatest in Portland history’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deni Avdija<\/a> has already established himself as a central pillar of Portland\u2019s core, but momentum is building in the United States that the upcoming season could elevate him to historic status within the franchise.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the 2026\/27 campaign, Mike Richman, host of the Locked On Blazers podcast, laid out a series of bold predictions – headlined by the prospect of the Israeli forward earning his second consecutive All-Star Game<\/a> selection and cementing his place among the Trail Blazers’ all-time greats.<\/p>\n

“I think this is the season where Avdija truly makes his mark – where he elevates to a level where he’s no longer just an interesting trivia answer for players who made a single All-Star appearance in a Portland<\/a> uniform,” Richman said. “He\u2019ll become a player who joins the club of the truly great ones.”<\/p>\n

Richman emphasized, however, that securing back-to-back All-Star honors will be no easy feat given the fierce depth of the Western Conference.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s going to be tough to make the All-Star team in the West. There\u2019s still top-tier talent there. LeBron is no longer there, which frees up one spot, and that helps. But it\u2019s still going to be very difficult to make that team.”<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, his projection for the forward remains resolute: “My bold prediction is that Deni Avdija will become a multi-time All-Star and join a very exclusive group in Portland history. He would be just the 13th player in Trail Blazers history<\/a> to be selected to the All-Star Game more than once. If he gets selected in back-to-back seasons, he joins an even smaller list. That would quickly place him alongside some of Portland\u2019s all-time greats. It\u2019s a bold prediction, considering historical precedents.”<\/p>\n

Rounding out his outlook for the season, Richman offered specific numerical forecasts: Portland will finish with 43 wins to claim the 7th seed in the Western Conference, driven by Avdija leading the team in scoring on his way to a second straight All-Star nod. Offensively, Richman projects the Trail Blazers to rank 11th in the league, though defensive struggles will persist with a 21st-place ranking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deni Avdija has already established himself as a central pillar of Portland\u2019s core, but momentum is building in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":867338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,980,3726,1682,6,2470,687,471,3967,4544,1617],"class_list":["post-867337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-portland-trail-blazers","tag-basketball","tag-blazers","tag-deni-avdija","tag-football","tag-history","tag-nba","tag-oregon","tag-portland","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-portlandtrailblazers","tag-success","tag-trail-blazers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117501100260407252","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867337","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=867337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}