The Portland Trail Blazers just added another familiar face to their bench. Jay Triano, the longtime NBA assistant who helped shape Damian Lillard early in his career, is coming back to Portland. NBA insider Chris Haynes broke the news, and the Blazers have not officially confirmed it yet, but the word is out.
Triano was an assistant for the Blazers from 2012 to 2016, right when Lillard was turning into a superstar. They worked together for four seasons before Triano moved on. Since then he has been around the league, picking up stops with the Suns, the Hornets, the Kings, and most recently the Mavericks. He is known as an offensive mind, the kind of guy who can draw up a play that actually gets a shooter open. That is something Portland could use.
Lillard is coming back from a torn Achilles he suffered in the spring of 2025, back when he was still with the Bucks. The injury cost him the rest of that season and raised some questions about how much he has left. But the Blazers are betting on him. They traded for Ja Morant this offseason too, which is a whole other thing. The backcourt now has Lillard, Morant, Scoot Henderson, and Jrue Holiday. That is four guys who expect minutes. That is not a problem you solve with a clipboard and a nice speech.
A crowded rotation and a curious roster
Micah Nori is the new head coach, replacing Tiago Splitter who left for Chicago. Nori has a reputation for being creative, and he is going to need all of it. How do you keep four guards happy when only two can be on the floor at once? Maybe they play small. Maybe they stagger minutes. Maybe someone moves to a bench role that they are not thrilled about. The Blazers have not said anything publicly about how they plan to handle it, but it is the kind of problem that makes or breaks a season.
Some people have compared this situation to what the Spurs did a couple years ago, when they ran a four-guard lineup all the way to the NBA Finals. That worked because everyone sacrificed. That kind of buy-in is rare. But if Lillard is healthy and Morant is motivated and Henderson keeps developing, maybe it is possible.
Triano’s presence should help. He already has a relationship with Lillard, which matters when you are trying to reintegrate a star coming off a major injury. And he has enough experience to earn respect from the younger guys. The Blazers have not released their schedule for the 2026-27 season yet, but that is expected sometime next month. That is when the real talk starts: which games matter, which road trips are brutal, and whether this whole experiment can actually work.
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