1stWhistle is reader-supported. This article contains affiliate links; we may earn a commission from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.
Micah Nori knows the right basketball answer — and he might not be allowed to use it
The Lillard-Morant starting lineup debate in Portland is less a roster puzzle and more a political minefield, and first-year head coach Micah Nori is the one who has to walk through it. The basketball case for starting Jrue Holiday alongside one of his two star guards is obvious. What isn’t obvious is whether a first-time head coach on a one-year guaranteed deal can actually make that call stick — or whether the weight of two franchise-sized egos collapses the whole thing before November.
The numbers that make this so uncomfortable
Per Hoops Rumors, Morant and Lillard have combined to start 1,225 of 1,227 career games. That’s not just a streak — that’s an identity. When Lillard publicly declared he expects to be in the starting five alongside Morant, he wasn’t making a prediction; he was staking a claim. Nori’s response — that he’ll “probably” start both in the preseason opener but hasn’t committed anything for the regular season — is the exact kind of non-answer a coach gives when he’s already anticipating blowback from whichever direction he goes.
Morant told reporters he’d have “no problem” coming off the bench. Nori’s reaction to that quote is the most honest moment of camp so far. He admitted he isn’t sure how Morant would truly feel about it: “On the outside, I think he would handle it great. On the inside … I don’t know.” That’s a coach telling you, in diplomatic language, that he doesn’t trust the public answer. Smart. You don’t build a rotation around what a star says in October media availability.
The defensive math that Nori can’t ignore
Holiday is the piece that makes this work on the defensive end, and everyone in the building knows it. A Morant-Lillard backcourt creates real problems switching against wings and in pick-and-roll coverage. Nori even said the quiet part out loud — that he doesn’t want to simply give Holiday the bench role because “Jrue will handle it the best.” That’s an admirable principle, but it also signals he’s aware of how easily that logic gets weaponized: do right by the team, reward the most emotionally mature player with a lesser role. The league has punished coaches for exactly that kind of integrity.
Morant did offer something genuinely encouraging about the offensive side of the pairing. He described playing with Lillard as “fun,” pointing to the spacing Dame creates as a shooter and how drive-and-kick actions open things up for everyone. That optimism is real and probably justified. Portland’s offense could be legitimately dangerous. But in a conference where Oklahoma City, Denver, and Minnesota are built to grind defensively, “dangerous offense, porous defense” is a ceiling, not a blueprint.
Why this decision is actually a league-wide referendum on how stars get managed
Here’s the angle the preseason coverage is mostly skipping: what Nori does in the next two weeks will send a signal across the entire NBA about whether first-time coaches on short-term deals can make uncomfortable talent decisions. The league is full of veteran stars who have internalized the idea that their statistical prime entitles them to a starting spot indefinitely. Lillard is 36 and coming back from a significant injury history. Morant, for all his talent, has a documented record of friction with coaching staffs when things don’t go his way. The Portland front office assembled this roster knowing both men would need managing. If Nori flinches — if he simply pencils in the two biggest names and hopes the defense figures itself out — it won’t be a basketball failure. It’ll be a front-office failure dressed up as a coaching decision.
There’s a historical comparison worth making here: the 2012-13 Lakers, who tried to run Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Dwight Howard, and Pau Gasol together under Mike Brown and then Mike D’Antoni, and produced one of the most expensive dysfunction displays in recent memory. No one is saying Portland collapses that badly. But the lesson from that team wasn’t that the talent was wrong — it was that nobody with actual authority made a hard call before the season started. Nori seems to understand this. Whether he’s empowered to act on it is a different question.
Elsewhere in the West: Warriors and the Lillard Morant starting lineup parallel
It’s worth noting that Portland isn’t the only Western team navigating a lineup identity question this week. Steve Kerr opened Golden State’s preseason with Al Horford, Brandin Podziemski, and rookie Yaxel Lendeborg flanking Stephen Curry and Draymond Green. Kerr praised the trio’s size, playmaking, and three-point shooting but stopped short of calling it his regular-season group. That’s a coach with five rings and job security running the same cautious preseason language — which tells you something about how much stock to put in any October lineup announcement league-wide.
In Los Angeles, Isaiah Jackson — back from an Achilles tear he suffered in November 2024 — has been running with the Clippers’ first unit and told reporters he expects to start. Head coach Tyronn Lue hasn’t committed, but reportedly likes how Jackson fits with Darius Garland. And in Sacramento, coach Doug Christie has been publicly enthusiastic about what Ben Simmons has brought to camp — a notable development given how thoroughly Simmons’ reputation eroded over the last several years.
The bet here
Nori starts Morant and Lillard together on opening night because he doesn’t yet have the standing to do anything else. By the All-Star break, Holiday is in the starting five and one of the two stars — most likely Lillard given his age and injury history — has accepted a reserve role that everyone will publicly call “load management.” Whether that transition happens cleanly or messily will define this Portland season more than any individual performance. Watch how Nori handles the first three-game losing streak. That’s the real tell.
Don’t miss a call like this — subscribe free to the 1stWhistle Daily Sports Digest and get the sharpest takes delivered before tip-off every morning.
Want to rep the story? Shop Ja Morant jerseys on Fanatics.