THE Portland Trail Blazers are trying to make food taste better during the 2023-24 NBA season.
Let me explain. Well, actually, I’ll let Trail Blazers center Deandre Ayton explain in a moment.
During Monday’s media availability session at the Trail Blazers practice facility, Ayton was in good spirits as he spoke with reporters. The session took place just one day after Portland’s tough 112-100 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Sunday night. The loss ended the Trail Blazers’ three-game winning streak and saw the Grizzlies close on a 26-2 run. Portland failed to score a field goal in the final 8:13 minutes of the game. Ayton, individually, had one of his most frustrating nights as a Trail Blazer. His teammates struggled to find him on shifts down low and the Grizzlies attacked him in the paint on their massive run throughout the game. His box-core score showed six points on 3-of-9 shooting and 11 rebounds.
But on Monday, the 26-year-old center was quick to smile and joke. When Trail Blazers reporter Brooke Olzendam asked who the team’s “first trash talkers” were, Ayton, who is often referred to by his initials DA, replied, “Ah, just DA, DA and DA.” Ayton didn’t lash out. loss or taking it lightly. He seemed like someone who was happy to be at work and who felt safe in the effort he and the team had put in the night before.
“We felt like we were playing hard. … The shots weren’t falling, but we did everything coach asked us to do, and coach was happy with the game,” Ayton said. “It gives a good feeling in your body to move on to the next one.”
Later, he returned to this idea of personal growth gained through hard work on the basketball court. It’s an approach he tries to foster in his younger teammates – and that’s where cooking comes into play.
“Letting them know that feeling of playing hard, the food tastes better and things like that,” he said. “That’s just the main focus of what we’re trying to teach right now.”
Ayton immediately said something simple, yet so true: when you work hard, you feel good, and that feeling spreads to other aspects of your life. You enjoy it more because it feels more earned. Food tastes better. Science even confirms it. Essentially, Ayton was talking about intrinsic motivation – working hard not just for wins or a paycheck (and yes, paychecks probably help in the NBA), but because of an inner desire and personal standard.
This concept is essential during a rebuilding season that prioritizes improvement over wins. The Trail Blazers are trying to establish a culture and rebuild a roster, a process that historically takes years to reap the rewards. Intrinsic motivation can be the difference between whether this unit is largely treading water until the next iteration gets its turn or whether it gains momentum toward something special.
Early in the season so far, this mix of young prospects and professional veterans has shown a desire to commit to the slow work ahead.
Two weeks into the season, the Trail Blazers are 3-4. The team is slowly but surely improving after the rude awakening it faced against the Los Angeles Clippers in a 123-111 season-opening loss. During the same press briefing on Monday, Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups emphasized that he was pleased with the progress.
“I told them today I was having so much fun coaching them,” Billups said. “…They do everything we ask them to do, so I’m very happy with our team and our intention and our focus.”
Billups, like Ayton, praised the team’s fight. The third-year head coach said he never questions his players’ level of competition, even during Sunday’s tough final stretch.
“Ninety-five percent of these teams recognize this loss,” Billups said. “They (just say) ‘it wasn’t our night.’ …We just don’t do that.
The team’s ability to keep moving forward was on display during last week’s three-game winning streak. In a 110-101 victory against the Detroit Pistons on November 1, Portland trailed by 18 in the first half and 15 in the third quarter. In the opener against Memphis last Friday, the Trail Blazers came back from 10 points down in the final three minutes of regulation to earn the overtime victory.
“More important than our record, I think we’re improving in the areas that we want to improve in,” Trail Blazers guard Malcolm Brogdon said Monday.
Brogdon said the team made progress defensively after being unhappy with the pressure on the ball in the first few games. They also cleaned up some of the “silly breakdowns,” Brogdon noted. In Portland’s first three losses, the Trail Blazers ranked 28th in defensive rating with a 117.8 rating and tied for 12th in steals with 8.7 per game. In the four games since, the Trail Blazers have earned the second-best defensive rating of 103 and are tied for second in steals with 9.8 per game.
Before Sunday’s game, Billups emphasized sharing the ball. The team responded with what he called its “best passing game of the year”, contributing to 23 of 37 field goals for a 62.2% assist percentage, which is close of the league average. In the six games leading up to Sunday, the Trail Blazers posted the second-lowest assist percentage at 50.4%.
So despite Sunday’s offensive collapse, the mood was positive Monday as Portland’s progressive moves were paying off in areas other than the win column. For Ayton, this positive attitude was the first proof that he was keeping his media promise to “change the narrative” of his new destination. With the Phoenix SunsAyton gained an unfavorable reputation for not playing hard if left out on offense.
Yet there he was Monday, optimistic after the fifth game this season where he took fewer than 10 shots. Although he was instrumental on defense, the transition to Portland’s offense wasn’t the smoothest for Ayton. Part of that is likely due to injuries to his primary pick-and-roll partners, Anfernee Simons and Scoot Henderson, and Billups said part of that is because the coaching staff has learned to use his new center.
Whatever the reasons that led to Ayton’s early offensive struggles, he didn’t seem too concerned about the subject of his touches. He showed up more ready for the work ahead of us.
“It’s something new that we’ve implemented here, so it’s not really about me.” he said. “It’s about how are we going to solve this problem and win games the right way.”
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