One Question, Every Team: Northwest Division

Opening Night is less than a week away, so it's time to move on to the next group of teams and answer One Big Question for each team in the Northwest Division.
 

Denver Nuggets

Clearly this is Nikola Jokic's team.  He's the consensus number one pick. But what about their up-and-coming forward?

Is Michael Porter a legitimate second round pick?

This is not a far-fetched question. In fact, RotoWire has Porter projected as the 24th overall player for 8-category leagues. Jamal Murray is out until early March, and one has to figure his return will be gradual. Porter should easily be Denver's number two scoring option and average roughly 22 points per game. With the added pressure, will Porter be able to maintain his better-than-50-percent shooting stroke, as he did the past two seasons? I think he can. Porter shot a sparkling 54.2% last season, even though he attempted 6.3 threes per game. And while his overall defense is weak, he still snagged 1.7 steals-and-blocks per game last year.

Porter is only 23 years old. There is room for improvement. Aaron Gordon frees up Porter to guard the opposition's lesser forward. So Porter can focus on the other end of the floor. Plus, Jokic's passing always helps Porter get some easy buckets. If everything breaks right, Porter could absolutely return second-round value -- especially if he can cross the 25-points-per-game plateau.

Minnesota Timberwolves

I hope you've enjoyed Anthony Edwards' fantastic press conferences. As a quote, he's already on a Hall-of-Fame trajectory.

What should we expect from Anthony Edwards?

Edwards' 19.3 points per game last year were pretty impressive, but the typical low rookie shooting percentages (41.7% FG; 77.6% FT) were not. Those will almost certainly creep up in 2021-22 based on his better shooting in the second half. His 1.1 steals per game were a great surprise. It will be interesting to see if Edwards and D'Angelo Russell can develop some chemistry in the backcourt.

RotoWire is forecasting 21.2 points, 4.7 boards, 2.4 triples and 1.3 steals per game this season. Those numbers, with some better percentages, land Edwards at 54th for 8-category leagues. I always preach that sophomores are habitually undervalued in drafts, and that certainly applies to Edwards. Too many drafters will focus on Edwards' slow start last season. Frankly, Edwards -- and not Russell -- should be the focus for this backcourt, though we'll see how the minutes and ball-handling responsibilities break down. We'll see. I'd be happy to draft Edwards in the high 40's.

Oklahoma City Thunder

Quick, name the four other starters, other than SGA, for the Thunder.

After Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, which other Thunder players should you draft?

Well, as of now, the other projected starters are: Luguentz Dort at shooting guard, a possible Josh Giddey-Aleksej Pokusevski hybrid at small forward, Darius Bazley at power forward and Isaiah Roby at the five. Gilgeous-Alexander is all the way up at 22nd overall in our 2021-22 projections. No other Thunder player even cracks the Top 110. We've got Pokusevski next up at 115, which assumes he adds some more heft to that 19-year-old, 7-foot, 195 pound frame of his. Someday Pokusevski could be an awesome combo of blocked shots and three-pointers, but that could still be a year or two away

For now, Poku is a fun, end-of-draft flier. To me, the real sleeper is Roby. This team has very few proven bigs. Derrick Favors is on the roster but doesn't really fit the trajectory of the rest of the team. By default, Roby should get minutes at both the four and the five. The 23-year-old could fall into plenty of double-doubles as he builds on last year's 23.4 minutes per game. And somewhere between 1.5 and 2.0 stocks could be well within reach.

Portland Trail Blazers

The starting five looks good on paper, and Larry Nance was a nice addition, but the Trail Blazers once again enter the season on the fringe of the elite teams in the Western Conference.

Will you sleep on Robert Covington?

By now, we know what we're getting from Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum, and managers have learned to live with the risk/reward Jusuf Nurkic presents. But the guy I'll be targeting is Covington, who's a virtual lock for 2.5+ steals-and-blocks per game. He's only 30 years old, and with this roster, Covington should repeat his 32.0 minutes per game from last year. Plus, in Yahoo leagues, he even qualifies as a center.  RotoWire ranks Covington at 48th for 8-category leagues, yet his ADP is lingering in the 80s. As my colleague Alex Barutha likes to point out: no matter what, Covington always finds a way to finish in the top 75 at the end of every season.

Utah Jazz

The Jazz yet again changed very little over the off-season.

Will Donovan Mitchell crack the Top 25?

Last season, Mitchell ranked 34th in per game production (8-category) and went to his second All-Star Game. And he again improved his production in the postseason, which I worry makes it too easy to overrate Mitchell. You know, recency bias and all that.

Chances are, Mitchell is always going to shoot around 44 percent from the field, as he has the last few seasons. He could continue his three-year points per game improvement. RotoWire does project Mitchell to go from 26.4 points per game last year to 27.4 this season. With the same starting five, one has to expect the pretty similar results, though. RotoWire has Mitchell ranked at 28th for standard, 8-category leagues -- that feels about right.

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