The Portland Trail Blazers are getting ready for the start of a new NBA season soon, with training camp not being too far away. Portland has been using this offseason to build out a more competitive roster, even if the team is likely to be a bottom squad in the Western Conference once again.

Portland has a collection of young talent on the roster, giving them some hope for the future. Watching the overall growth of the younger players will be the main purpose of this season for the squad.

Players such as Shaedon Sharpe, Scoot Henderson, and Donovan Clingan are all guys to watch this season for the Trail Blazers. Each is likely to be part of the core group moving forward so the organization will be accessing their development.

Within the new NBA schedule that was released last week, the Trail Blazers got the short end of the stick in one area. While the team does have fewer back-to-back games and shorter trips, they will be traveling the most amount of miles across the NBA this season.

“As you can surmise if you have ever seen a map of the continental United States, the Trail Blazers typically have to travel more than most teams, and this year, they top out at roughly 50k miles, the most traveled by any team this season. The Western Conference average is 45,000 miles traveled and the least amount any team in the West travels this season is 41,000 miles.”

Even with this fact, it’s not the worst thing in the world for the Trail Blazers. Traveling is much easier than it has previously been and most teams would take more miles traveled than back-to-back games.

Portland has 13 back-to-backs this coming season, one less than they saw last year. The league average for back-to-back games is 14.9 so the Trail Blazers made out with less than most teams across the league.

The Trail Blazers have four back-to-backs in November, three in January, and three in March. It seems that they will get most of them out of the way during specific months.

This schedule should be seen as a win for Portland and with it now out, basketball is just around the corner. The Trail Blazers will open the season at home against the Golden State Warriors on Oct. 23.

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