3. A competitive bench where minutes will be earned. This offseason, GM Neil Olshey went out and added depth. Portland’s bench includes Williams, Thomas Robinson, Dorell Wright, McCollum, Watson and Crabbe. This means a couple things.
First, the starters are going to see a dip in minutes, which is fine; 40 minutes a night is probably too much even for a young guy like Lillard. Second, it means that to crack the rotation, guys like Meyers Leonard, Joel Freeland, Victor Claver and Barton are going to have to fight for minutes.
A deep, competitive bench means an effective bench. An effective bench probably keeps Portland from losing 13 games in a row.
4. A young core that can be a force for the future. The real pro move pulled by Olshey this offseason was basically creating two teams. There’s the group that consists of Aldridge, Matthews, Lillard, Batum, Lopez, Wright and Williams, and then there’s the unit that consists of Lillard, Leonard, Robinson, McCollum and a combination of Crabbe, Barton, Claver and Freeland.
The first team is built to win games now; the second team is built to win games in the future should that first team fail in their prime directive.
The offseason signings are all trade bait; should they prove otherwise, they’re all on short-term, small-money contracts. All of Portland’s young players are raw but also cheap. Barton and Crabbe are second-rounders. Claver, Freeland, Lillard, Robinson, Leonard and McCollum are all rookie-scale guys.
If it all falls apart for Portland in the early going, Olshey is in a perfect position to ship out his older, more expensive assets and be more than halfway to a serviceable roster before the start of the 2014-15 season. More than that, though, there are going to be stretches this season where the Blazers will trot out three lottery picks from the 2012 draft and a lottery pick from the 2013 draft. Not many teams have that option.
5. The continuing LaMarcus Aldridge situation. If asked to be completely honest, without even a hint of 
home-based bias, this writer would say that given the situation as it stands right now there is a 75 percent chance Aldridge wears a Blazers jersey for the entirety of 2013-14.
That is to say, a trade that includes LA could happen, but it’s not likely considering the moves and the tenor of Olshey’s remarks to the media. Should Portland struggle early, finish again in the lottery, or fail to make serious inroads in the playoffs Aldridge probably will be looking to go elsewhere as a free agent after his contract expires in 2016.
Aldridge and his feelings about being in Portland and playing for the Blazers will continue to be the top story most of the season. It’s not a basketball story per se, but the NBA is a business. Aldridge is in the business of winning; the Blazers are in the business of keeping their best player.
Mike Acker writes From the Elbow, a Blazers column for the Willamette Week, Portland’s biggest alt weekly. He is the former editor and lead writer of the Rip City Project. You can follow him on Twitter.
Where in the wotld are you getting the idea POR had the top four man unit last season? What are you sorting by? http://stats.nba.com/leagueLineups.html?GroupQuantity=4&pageNo=1&rowsPerPage=25&sortField=PLUS_MINUS&sortOrder=DES