Portland Trail Blazers

Wait, are people sleeping on the Portland Trail Blazers?

Published Oct. 8, 2015 12:42 p.m. ET

foxsports

Nobody expects the Portland Trail Blazers to do anything this season. And that makes sense. They lost LaMarcus Aldridge, Nicolas Batum, Robin Lopez and Wesley Matthews, and replaced them with inexperienced role players who've never started in the NBA before.

But ESPN's Kevin Pelton thinks they might actually be pretty good. Here's what he recently said about their upcoming season:

This essentially boils down to, will Portland be better than the Dallas Mavericks, Utah Jazz, Phoenix Suns and Sacramento Kings?

It's not an easy sell, but if everything breaks right and they don't suffer any serious injuries, who knows? Watch the entire video below:

"I think a lot of people think this team is going to be near the bottom of the Western Conference, maybe winning in the 20s, but there's more talent here than people think. Guys like Ed Davis and Mason Plumlee, and then also Al-Farouq Aminu on the wing: players who have always shined in terms of advanced statistics, whether it's ESPN's Real Plus/Minus or some of the box score stats and getting an opportunity to do a little bit more. I think that Portland could be competitive even for the eight seed if everything breaks right."