Portland spent the summer collecting point guards like they were worried the league would stop making them. Damian Lillard came home. Ja Morant came over from Memphis. Jrue Holiday was already here. That's three guys who've spent most of their careers being the one who brings it up the court.

And the most important decision-maker on the floor still might be the 6-foot-8 forward.

Bringing the ball up and actually running the offense are two different jobs. Portland's guards handle a lot of the first one. They walk it up, call the set, make the entry pass. But six games into the season, the possessions that actually break a defense keep starting with Deni Avdija putting his head down and going somewhere. The drive, the kick-out, the foul drawn, the help defender who's now a step late on Lillard. That's where the advantage gets created, and it's usually not coming from whoever had the ball at halfcourt.

That's not a knock on the guards. Portland's 5-1 with the fourth-best offense and the fifth-best net rating. The guards are a big reason why. It's just that the whole thing is built around a guy who isn't listed as one of them.

Who Starts It and Who Breaks It

The Lakers game is a good place to start, partly because it was the best win Portland's had and partly because it showed the whole Deni experience in about three minutes.

Walker Kessler swatted his first drive. A few possessions later, his first assist of the night was a feed to Lillard for a 28-footer. Within the next two and a half minutes, he'd coughed it up twice, both times into Ziaire Williams' hands. Everything ran through him early, the good and the bad.

Then there's the possession in the second quarter where Robert Williams III flips the ball to Avdija, and he gets downhill off it before Kevon Looney has to foul him at the rim. No guard touched that one. It's a big-to-forward action that ends with two free throws, and nothing about it shows up in an assist column. Portland's offense is full of those.

The Lakers spent stretches putting wings on him. Matisse Thybulle, who was his teammate last year, picked up an early foul on him. Williams and Jake LaRavia took turns too. That's the trade-off a defense makes against this lineup. If your best perimeter defender is on Deni, somebody smaller's on Lillard or Morant. If you go small on Deni, he just shoves his way into the paint, and when help comes, the shooters are the ones who eat.

Portland shot 59% from the field, went 18-of-36 from three, and dished out 30 assists. Morant went 9-of-13. Lillard hit four threes. Holiday dropped 22 off the bench. Avdija finished with 23 points, nine assists, and four threes, and he was plus-8 in 33 minutes.

He also hit the three that put Portland up 128-124 with 2:59 left after the Lakers had erased an eight-point fourth-quarter lead behind Luka Doncic's 41. Morant's floater and Lillard's dagger with 43 seconds left closed it out. The guards finished the game. Avdija spent most of the night making sure there was one to finish.

Point Deni Was an Accident. Then It Wasn't.

Nobody drew this up. A year ago, Chauncey Billups was put on leave after his indictment, and Portland's guards kept getting hurt. Somebody had to bring the ball up, so Avdija did. Micah Nori said it pretty plainly at media day:

What unlocked for Deni was through injuries — you saw what he's able to do with the basketball in his hands.

What Portland saw was a guy who averaged 24.2 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 6.7 assists. He finished third in Most Improved voting and was the first player left off the All-NBA ballots. He led the league in drives at 19.6 a game and in fouls drawn on drives. By January, he had 104 assists off drives. Nobody else had even 70. He also dropped 41 on the Suns in the play-in to lock up the 7th seed, which some people out here in the Valley still haven't fully gotten over.

The bill came in turnovers. He averaged 3.8 a game and Portland finished dead last as a team at 17.3. He was one of the most-doubled players in the NBA, and with no other real creator on the floor, defenses could load up on him and dare anyone else to beat them.

This year looks like the deal Portland was hoping for. His turnover rate has dropped from 16.0% to 10.3%, and he's coughing it up 2.2 times a game. His usage barely moved, from 29.3% to 28.3%, and his true shooting is identical at .598. Same load, way less mess. In September, Avdija said the new guards meant "more open shots and more straight line drives," and that's about what's happened. Per Cleaning the Glass, 61% of his made shots have been assisted, up from 49%. He also led the league with 25 drives a game through the first three games.

If you only checked his assists, you'd think his playmaking role got smaller. He's at 5.5, down from 6.7. But assists only count the last pass. They don't count the drive that sucked in two defenders and led to the swing pass that led to the open three. Lillard's made shots have been assisted 63% of the time this year. Dame's getting set up a lot more, and plenty of those possessions start with Deni going downhill.

Take a Guard Away and See Who's Left

The three point guards thing got tested a lot sooner than anyone wanted. Morant felt his left hamstring go midway through the fourth quarter of their loss to Memphis, his old team. It's a grade 2 strain, and he'll be re-evaluated in four weeks.

That Memphis game was ugly in a useful way. Portland went 12-of-49 from deep and the Grizzlies scored 23 points off 16 Blazers turnovers. Nori didn't blame the misses so much as what came after them:

We weren't making shots, and then I felt like we didn't trust it as much anymore.

Avdija had 24 points, nine rebounds, and seven assists with 12 free-throw attempts, and he still didn't try to take the whole thing over the way he would have last year. He talked about that after the game:

I trust my teammates. I think today we had a test of what happens when things aren't clicking as much.

Some people are going to want more hero ball from him on nights like that. I kind of respect that he didn't panic and turn back into last year's guy two weeks into a new system.

Scoot Henderson took Morant's starting spot, and Nori told him exactly what he didn't want:

I don't want him to overthink and try to be an orchestrator. I want Scoot to be Scoot. Just play.

That tells you a lot. If the guy starting at point guard isn't supposed to orchestrate, somebody else is. Nori has also said Lillard will spend more time off the ball than he used to. So in the starting group, the orchestrating falls to Deni.

It's worked so far. Avdija put up 24 in the win in Utah and went 10-of-13 from the line. Then he scored 28 in Denver, including nine in the fourth quarter. Holiday ran the second unit beautifully that night with 17 points, eight rebounds, and 10 assists off the bench.

The offense doesn't need another guard to run it. They need guards who can play off the guy who already does.

Three Guards, One Hub

The way this fits together, at least on paper, is that none of the three guards have to be a full-time point guard, because Avdija's the one holding it all together.

Morant's job is pressure. When he's healthy, his first step drags help into the paint, and Portland outscored teams by 16.4 points per 100 possessions in his 103 minutes. Lillard's job is gravity. He's 36, he's coming off a torn Achilles that cost him all of last season, and Nori's been open about using him off the ball more. Holiday's job is a little bit of everything. He runs the bench, guards the best perimeter guy, and he's the one you want out there when Portland needs stops. Portland's been 6.7 points per 100 better with him on the floor than off it.

Avdija's the one constant across all of it. Portland's plus-11.6 per 100 with him on the court and plus-6.6 without him, which is still good because this team's been good, but the gap's real.

Now, a 41-point opening-night blowout of Phoenix is doing some heavy lifting in those numbers. Nobody should be carving these into stone in early November. But they point in the same direction as the eye test, though.

The guards seem fine with it, too, at least publicly. Morant said in September:

Everybody's very unselfish and I think we're the only team right now who probably is getting questioned about this.

Lillard's line was:

I think the balance will work itself out, just based on what we're all capable of.

Portland's averaging 30.7 assists a game, second in the league, and their passes are up almost 17 a night from last year. Nobody's hunting their own shots yet.

Nori's been the clearest of anyone about who gets the ball:

[Avdija] will have the ball plenty because we'd be crazy not to give it to him.

The Part That Doesn't Fit Neatly

It's not all perfect, and Deni's far from a shoo-in for the MVP at this point.

The jumper's still streaky. He's shooting 33.3% from three this season, and he went 0-for-4 in the Memphis loss on the one night Portland really needed someone to make shots. Last year's Spurs series was a reminder of where this version of the team tops out, too. Avdija averaged 22.2 points and Portland still went down 4-1.

Joe Cronin called the team's outside shooting "TBD" back in September, and nothing so far has fully answered that.

There's also the Sacramento game. Avdija took just five shots in the first half while Lillard and Morant went a combined 4-of-14. Portland was down five at the break. Then he scored 11 with three assists in the third quarter and the Blazers won the period 44-26. That's the best case for Point Deni, and it's also the worry. The offense is better when it goes to him early, but that doesn't always happen as often as it should.

And crunch time still belongs to the guards, at least for now. In Los Angeles, the last two daggers were a Morant floater and a Lillard three. That's how it should be. If you've got Dame, you want Dame taking that shot. But it means Avdija's value shows up in the 40 minutes before the ending, and that's harder to see on a highlight reel.

Then Morant comes back — probably sometime in December — and the usage math gets tight all over again. Nori's going to have four guys who want the ball and only one ball.

Lillard's 36. Holiday's 36. Morant's 27 and trying to rebuild his reputation. Avdija's 25, and he's already the guy opposing coaches build the scouting report around. He's the one who makes the other three make sense, and he's the one who'll still be here when the guard room turns over.

They get the Lakers again Friday, still without Morant. Doncic will probably get his 35-40. Watch who's touching the ball when Portland's possessions actually go somewhere. It won't always be the guy who brought it up.

All stats courtesy of NBA.com.

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