In an article last week, I wrote about basketball-reference.com, which was tied for 16th with the Orlando Magic. While the Spurs may have provided a blueprint to winning a title without a statistical superstar, they didn’t change history in regards to team defense.

History says that it becomes extraordinarily hard to win a title without a top-ten defense in the league. If that is the case, then the Blazers have some work to do.

The good news is that they have solid defenders already on their roster. Matthews and Batum are both above-average wing defenders and Robin Lopez is a serviceable defender (as well as very underrated offensively). Charlotte head coach Steve Clifford turned the league’s worst defense in 2012 to the league’s sixth-best defense in 2013 with an almost identical roster. Teams can improve with time, coaching, and scheme.

Bench Play
While the Blazers have five solid guys in their starting positions, their production drops off at a frightening rate when those guys come out of the game. Their sixth man off the bench, Mo Williams, only had 2.2 win shares on the year. That dip from 7.5 to 2.2 is very significant.

The Spurs were not like that at all. While all of the win share totals were low – and a lot of that had to do with no player averaging more than 30 minutes – their lows weren’t as low as most teams. The Spurs had 11 players that all had higher win share totals than Mo William’s mark of 2.2. Eleven guys! That’s a football team!

This will be a huge part of the Blazers taking a step up into the next tier of Western Conference teams, if they are to do so. There are still some intriguing young pieces on the roster in C.J. McCollum, Thomas Robinson, and Will Barton. Meyers Leonard doesn’t look as promising, but he’s still only 22 years old.

There will have to be help from the bench. Perhaps in the Eastern Conference a team could get away with having below average guys at their six through ten spots. But in the Western Conference, that won’t fly. Not when other teams have guys like Isaiah Thomas, Manu Ginobili, Draymond Green, and Jamal Crawford coming off the bench. The Blazers young guys will need to develop into solid rotation pieces, or else Portland will be stuck in the purgatory that is the fourth through ninth spot in the West.

So, is having a balanced team a good thing? The Spurs showed us last year it is – if it’s the right type of balance. The Trail Blazers have the potential ingredients on their roster and coaching staff to make that a reality; it will be interesting to see if they can put it all together.