Season In Review: Deandre Ayton

“My first season (in Portland) went amazing. It was a great learning experiance, I truly got to see what type of player I am, just going through adversity, having a new start. It was filled with a lot of excitement, a lot of obstacles, a lot of ups and downs, learned a lot about who I am. I'm truly a leader, I'm a survivor as well. When it comes to a lot of trials and tribulations I still pushed through. This season I learned how to play with young guys and learned how to be a vet, a true vet.” -- Deandre Ayton

GP: 55 (55 starts) | MIN: 32.4 | PTS: 16.7 | FG%: 57.0 | 3P%: 0.0 | FT%: 82.3

EFG%: 57.1 | TS%: 58.7 | REB: 11.1 | AST: 1.6 | BLK: 0.8 | STL: 1.0 | TO: 1.8

According to Sportrac, Deandre Ayton has a base salary of $34,005,126 for the 2024-25 season, the third season of a four-season max contract, and is under contract through the 2025-26 season.

It would be fair to say fans in Portland weren’t entirely sure what they were getting when the team acquired Deandre Ayton from the Phoenix Suns a little more than a week before the start of training camp. The top overall pick of the 2018 NBA Draft out of Arizona seemed like the exact kind of player you’d want at center to anchor your team on both sides of the ball, but with the way his tenure ended with the Suns left some questions.

But Ayton answers those questions, and then some, in his first season in Portland.

Injuries, both his own and those of the guards he was most reliant on, got Ayton’s time with the Trail Blazers off to a bit of a slow start. But once the 7-0 center from the Bahamas was healthy and had some time to develop chemistry with the likes of Anfernee Simons and Scoot Henderson, it became very apparent that, even if there are still a lot of questions to answer about this roster, that the starting center position is pretty well squared away.

In Ayton, the Trail Blazers got a center who can play like a traditional back-to-the-basket center while also having the speed and athleticism to rim run on both sides of the ball. He shot 75 percent in the restricted area, but maybe more impressively, a ridiculous 51 percent from the midrange, making him something of a throwback in a league that has gone crazy for three-point shooting. And for a team that has struggled rebounding the last few seasons, Ayton’s ability to clean the glass went a long ways toward resolving a persistent issue.

However, Ayton’s positive influence in the locker room might have been one of his most important contributions during his first season in Portland. Ayton wanted to prove he had leadership qualities, something he didn’t get to display much on more the more veteran teams he played for in Phoenix, and one needed to only hear him deflect praise from himself and on to his teammates, something he did regularly this season, to understand his benefit in the Trail Blazers’ locker room.

In short, even in a less than ideal situation, Ayton answered every question about his skills and approach to the game during his season season in Portland. He got the fresh start he wanted and the Trail Blazers got a high-quality starting center who is just entering his prime.

Deandre Ayton's career in Portland might have gotten off to a bit of a slow start, but not long after the calendar turned over to 2024, the man who proclaimed at media day that he wanted to be known as "Dominayton" was doing just that.

So the there are no lack of options in the last three months of the season when it comes to picking out Ayton's best performance.

He posted three consecutive games of at least 20-plus points and 15-plus rebounds during a week-long stretch in March, which made him just the third player this season to go on such a run (Nikola Jokic and Domantas Sabonis were the others). Ayton also joined Bill Walton as the only Trail Blazer to put up 80-plus points and 50-plus rebounds over the course of three games. 

And the best game of Ayton’s season, a 30-point, 19-rebound, two-steal performance in a 128-118 overtime victory versus the Toronto Raptors at Moda Center on March 9, started that stretch. It was his first career game with at least 30 points and 19 rebounds and became just the third player to reach those numbers in a game (LeBron James and Nikola Jokic were the others) during the 2023-24 season.