The Blazers small forward is playing his best season of his career and is aiming for a call-up to the All-Star Game. In Oregon they are aiming for it, also for the future
In Portland they were expecting the explosion of Scoot Henderson, the consecration of Shaedon Sharpe, the surge of Toumani Camara and instead Deni Avdija took off. The Israeli has always been a good player, but now he has become excellent. He is playing as a franchise man for the Blazers. In his sixth NBA season, the second for Rip City after starting his career in Washington as the No. 1 pick. 9 of the 2020 Draft. At 25 years old he is already the best Israeli player ever in the NBA, in terms of numbers and status. And the best seems to be yet to come for him and for the Blazers who are waiting for Dame Lillard’s return from the Achilles tendon injury as the “hen” of a group of intriguing young people, even if they still have to “weigh” between potential and reality. The certainty now is Avdija. And who expected it…
MAGICAL MOMENT
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The Blazers are on a four-game winning streak and the Beit Zera winger scored 34.3 points, pulled down 7.8 rebounds and dished out 8 assists on average during this string of successes. Against Houston he scored 41 points, his season high, but it was the triple double he put together against the Spurs in San Antonio that opened many people’s eyes to him. 29 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists in the success in Texas showing the entire repertoire, the completeness of a player who also knows how to defend, of height, 203 centimeters, and of game readings. And he already speaks as a team man: “We are improving in races decided in the sprint. We are disciplined in defence, we help each other, we don’t leave anyone alone, we go and take victories together, as a team”. Avdija also impresses with words.
MOST IMPROVED PLAYER
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Its numbers “make noise” even generated in a small and decentralized market like Portland, certainly not the center of the world in the United States. 26.3 points per game so far, with 7.2 rebounds and 7 assists on average. Scoring production has skyrocketed compared to the recent past, at 16.9 points last season. He plays more as a game creator, as a facilitator, taking advantage of his basketball intelligence: his career high so far was 3.9 assists per game distributed a year ago, they have almost doubled… These are not numbers in themselves, let’s try to understand each other. The Blazers have an 18-20 record, just below the 50% water line, but ninth in the Western Conference, just two games away from Golden State, eighth, in full swing for the play-in and who knows, maybe even for the playoffs. Furthermore, these figures emerge in a context that is not at all easy because it is inevitable that the dismissal of Coach Billups, investigated in the criminal betting scandal investigated by the FBI and replaced by Tiago Splitter, cannot fail to have left consequences. With the former Brazilian center sitting on the bench Avdija seems even more at the center of the technical project, the fulcrum of the Blazers’ offensive game. The man of decisive shots, decisive plays. Avdija is perhaps the favorite, today, for the NBA Most Improved Player award ahead of Atlanta’s Jalen Johnson and Utah’s Keyonte George.
BEST PLAYER IN ISRAEL
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Already in December 2025 The Times of Israel celebrated Avdija’s overtaking of Omri Casspi (4,642 points) as the all-time best Israeli scorer in the NBA, calling him one of the best players in the world. And imagining him as a possible All Star, it would be a first for a player from his country. The new formula of the all-star match, US players against international players, could favor him, among other things. We’ll see if he will also be among the giants of the league of basketball giants in Los Angeles on February 15th on the parquet of the Intuit Dome, but the leap in quality is already obvious. Anyway.
PROSPECTIVE BLAZERS
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Lillard’s return should take place next season, no one intends to force his recovery time, he is 35 years old, but with him you never know. He had already returned much earlier than imagined in Milwaukee after the health problem, blood clots, blamed on the Bucks. The future of Henderson, the No. 1 pick. 3 of the 2023 Draft, who some at the time even imagined as an alternative to Victor Wembanyama as the first call, has not yet played this season, the victim of a muscle injury. The 21-year-old is expected to return in a couple of weeks, according to the Blazers’ latest medical report, but he may have already played his last game for Portland. The trade market expires on February 5th and his is a name among those to follow. The Blazers could sacrifice him to get a scorer like Trey Murphy from New Orleans, perhaps better suited to playing prospectively with Lillard, Sharpe and Avdija. The news is that the Blazers are imagined as buyers on the market, because now they believe in it, they no longer see this season as an interim one, they want to set themselves immediate post-season goals. Thanks above all to Avdija. A name that the NBA stock exchange gives as a continuous and vertical rise. On the lips of many, soon on everyone’s lips if it continues like this…
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