The Portland Trail Blazers play host to the Oklahoma City Thunder at Moda Center on Wednesday.

The Thunder (42-19) have lost two of their last three games, getting blown out by the Los Angeles Lakers in their most recent outing. That's a bizarre result since OKC had a 9-2 record across their previous 11 games, climbing up to the top spot in the Western Conference. The mini slide has them sitting a game back of the Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Timberwolves for those top two seeds, and having homecourt could be a massive advantage for this young team. In any case, this club has three stud players that are all 25 or younger and they have the most draft capital in the NBA. If you were to write a book on how to handle a rebuild, examining this Thunder roster would be the best way to approach it.

The Trail Blazers (17-43) were expected to be terrible this season but this has turned into a nightmare. There was an inevitable rebuild once they got rid of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum but no one could've foressen the injuries that have hit this club. They just played their most recent game without Malcolm Brogdon, Jerami Grant, Deandre Ayton and Scoot Henderson. That's close to the whole starting five, with Anfernee Simons being the only piece remaining. That's why this club only has 17 wins through 60 games, and one has to wonder how much those veterans will play over the closing 22 games. The only thing Portland is playing for is draft positioning in next years draft and that's obviously critical when looking at how poor this Portland roster has been.

This is the fourth matchup between these teams, with Oklahoma City looking for the season sweep. The Thunder have won 11 straight games over the Blazers in total.