Damian Lillard and Ja Morant played together as Trail Blazers teammates for the first time Tuesday, Sept. 29. The two guards ran scrimmages at Portland's Tualatin practice facility during a nearly three-hour session that marked the official start of training camp, as first reported by The Oregonian.

Lillard, Morant, Deni Avdija, Toumani Camara and Donovan Clingan played extensively together in live drills. Lillard said the expected starting group is taking shape: "[As] far as I know, Ja will start, I'll start, Deni."

First-year head coach Micah Nori, a former Minnesota Timberwolves assistant, opened the session with a film-room slideshow on expectations before pushing the team through fast-paced drills and scrimmages. Lillard said Nori looked comfortable and seasoned running his first practice.

The day's biggest surprise walked in unannounced. Lionel Hollins, the starting guard on Portland's 1977 championship team whose No. 14 hangs in the rafters, addressed the squad at Nori's invitation. Hollins urged the players to bring urgency and consistency to daily workouts and to set a standard that lasts all season.

Nori said Hollins reinforced his own message: "Just that today's easy, in a sense, but it's a standard that you're setting and making sure that every single night we compete."

The early returns on the Lillard-Morant backcourt drew praise from teammates. Camara said the two guards read each other well, create openings for everyone on the floor and pull defenses apart with their gravity.

Nori did have one first-day stumble. At the end of practice, he forgot to call the team in for the closing huddle until someone nudged him. It was his only miscue.

The Blazers enter camp after finishing seventh in the Western Conference in 2025-26, their first postseason berth in five years. Lillard, 36, missed all of last season rehabilitating a torn left Achilles tendon and enters this camp with no restrictions. Morant, acquired in late June in a trade that sent Jerami Grant and Kris Murray to Memphis, played just 20 games for the Grizzlies last season.

At media day Sept. 28, Morant addressed questions about the guard-heavy roster. "Everybody's very unselfish and I think we're the only team right now who probably is getting questioned about this," Morant told OPB. "But there's a lot of teams probably wishing they had this many ball-handlers."

One cloud hangs over the roster. Shaedon Sharpe suffered a torn right meniscus during an offseason workout and is expected to miss a significant stretch of the 2026-27 campaign.

Portland opens the regular season Wednesday, Oct. 21, at home against the Phoenix Suns.