The Portland Trail Blazers came into the 2024-2025 season with very low expectations for the season. They are the youngest team in the NBA and don’t really have many guys worth bringing up. In this year’s draft they selected Donovan Clingan with the 7th pick with hopes that he will be their future center for a while. They also have Scoot Henderson who despite having a bad rookie year, looks great on the floor and is playing some quality minutes. They also have Anfernee Simons who has been on the team since 2018 yet is still only 25. Simons has been a reliable scorer especially in the clutch time leading the blazers in points for the past couple years.

All of these guys have potential, but do not seem like they will be the core pieces to win a championship. Shaedon Sharpe was drafted with the 7th overall pick for the Blazers 2 years ago and has the great potential to be a superstar. However, with his injury history and him being out for the first month this season, there are still many questions that need answered to see if he really can be the guy in Portland for a long time. This brings us to an awkward situation where Blazers fans don’t see much of a future with this team despite how young they are.

Portland needed someone to bring this team to an actual chance to compete and through 5 games they have found a hidden gem. A 3 team deal that sent Toumani Camara and Deandre Ayton to Portland with Jrue Holiday, while the Blazers gave up Damian Lillard to the Bucks and Jusuf Nurkic to the Suns. Portland ultimately ended up trading Holiday to the Celtics for picks and Malcolm Brogdon, and many people saw the Damian Lillard trade as a major disappointment with what they got in return. In this trade was the hidden gem Toumani Camara. Camara played a minor role with the team last season, showing signs that he could be a role player when he develops.

This season Toumani Camara has been nothing but spectacular, playing the most minutes out of anyone on the team, while also guarding each team’s best player. The tasks at hand haven’t been easy. He had to guard some of the NBA’s premiere scorers like Stephen Curry, Zion Williamson, and James Harden. Stephen Curry was held to just 10 shots and Camara limited him as much as possible. Curry only shot 40% off of not many shots and Camara impressed running the floor offensively. In Camara’s back-to-back against Zion, the Blazers split 1-1, but Camara got the best of Williamson holding him to an average of 15 points off of 25% shooting from the field. This was another impressive outing for Camara defensively while he also shot 3/5 from outside the arch stapling himself as a 3 and D player. Against James Harden was Camaras best game offensively and defensively as a whole. Camara had 12 points off of 10 shots while playing 40 minutes and playing great defense on James Harden. He held James Harden to 19 points off of 33% shooting from the field. Harden also only shot 4 total free throws while before that he was averaging around 12. The Blazers also ended up winning.

This season may not be one that Portland fans had optimism going into, but Toumani Camara has sparked some form of hope into the season, and fans can’t be more happy with how Camara has been playing so far.