N.J. native, son of Yankees advisor, Justin Minaya making an impact with Portland Trail Blazers

Justin Minaya has had a front row seat to one of the biggest NBA stories of this preseason.

The Harrington, N.J. native is in training camp with the Portland Trail Blazers, who last month engineered a blockbuster trade of superstar Damian Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks. With Lillard gone, Portland has turned its team over to rookie guard Scoot Henderson, the No. 3 pick in the NBA Draft, and a group of other young players like Shaedon Sharpe and Anfernee Simons.

“I knew about the trade request, so everybody was waiting on something to happen all summer,” Minaya, the son of ex-Mets GM and current Yankees senior advisor Omar Minaya, told NJ Advance Media by phone. “I was a little surprised just on the team that he got [traded] to but it was cool.”

With or without Lillard, the 6-foot-6 Minaya remains a fringe NBA player but he is doing all the little things to try and make the team’s roster ahead of the Trail Blazers’s season-opener at the L.A. Clippers on Oct. 25. In Monday’s 117-106 preseason loss to the Phoenix Suns, the former Old Tappan High School forward tallied 5 points, including a 3-pointer, 5 rebounds, 2 steals and an assist on a lob dunk to Sharpe in 25 minutes off the bench.

In four regular-season games with the Blazers last April, he averaged 4.3 points and 3.8 rebounds in 22 minutes per game.

“I love him, man, I love him,” said Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, who won an NBA championship in 2004 with the Detroit Pistons. “He just does everything right, does everything with the type of force and intensity that you would want. He’s picking guys up full [court], he’s in the passing lanes, he’s defensive rebounding, he’s slashing and cutting.

“He’s doing everything that a guy you would say is a fringe NBA player should do. A lot of players want to be the guy and they don’t want to take those roles. They want to have an iso or they want to score, and Justin don’t care about that at all. And that’s why he’s impactful, that’s why everybody likes playing with him.”

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After spending four seasons at South Carolina, Minaya transferred closer to home to Providence for the 2021-22 season. He was a key member of the Big East regular-season champion Friars, who reached the Sweet 16 before losing to eventual national champion Kansas. He averaged 6.5 points and 5.5 rebounds and served as one of the best defensive players in the league.

Minaya, 24, went undrafted in 2022 and ended up with the Mexico City Capitanes of the NBA G League. In 27 games, he averaged of 12.7 points, 4.4 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 2.1 steals and 35.1 minutes during the 2022-23 season.

He was ambivalent about going to Mexico City at first, but soon learned that for fans there, “that’s like their NBA team.” While G League teams in other cities may draw 1,000-2,000 fans, Minaya said the Capitanes attracted 8,000-10,000 fans per game.

“That was amazing, bro,” he said of living in Mexico City. “That was somewhere I never expected I would be at, but it was a really great G League system for me because I had a really good relationship with the coach [Ramon Diaz] and then I was really able to play free and not have to worry about mistakes.

“I also had a lot of veterans, like Kenneth Faried, Shabazz Napier, Gary Clark that were on the team, guys like that. They were great with me, and being able to learn from them that was the most important piece for me, just being able to pick up things. That was the biggest reason why I felt I ended up getting called up.”

Minaya was called up by the Blazers in April and is slowly familiarizing himself with the city. He lives in a hotel near the Moda Center -- enabling him to walk to the arena -- but is in the process of getting an apartment.

“It’s been nice to kind of see the city, I went on a couple of hikes,” he said.

His father, now a senior advisor with the Yankees, recently visited Justin in Portland for a preseason game.

“My dad came out here and we went to dinner and just kind of explored the city a little bit,” Justin said.

Going forward, he just wants to continue to do the little things that make a difference in winning games -- and happen to impress his coach along the way.

“I’ve been here all summer, they kind of know what type of player I am,” he said. “But [I’m] just trying to show who I am more and more every day, be consistent and be as efficient as possible.”