Portland Blazers

Portland’s windowon Lillard must be closing he turns 32 soon and played under 30 games last season. His backcourt running mate for most of his career got traded. If Port really ever needed draft luck it was this year but they didn’t get in the top 4 picks but even then you cannot really trade a player of Chet or Jabari’s potential to win now unless the top guy at the franchise was a player a level above Lillard.

They could look to do something with 7th pick and if star players are available that would be a good starting point for any trade. Plus Bledsoe’s $18 million plus deal for next season is under $4 million guaranteed so you have anlother nice trade piece there if they wanted to role the dice.

Lillard’s trade value coming back off an injury will be far lower than it was a year ago so if they looked to move him on they wouldn’t get the best value currently. Factor in his age and he is owed potentially $135 million over next 3 seasons makes things more difficult too.

I think they need to draft BPA and get Lillard back and firing then if he is back to his elite best his trade value would be much higher again. There is talk they might make a run on Ayton and he’d be a good running mate for Lillard but a lot depends what the Suns do with him.

I actually think that with so many people reiterating these tired tropes of the Blazers not doing well, they’re increasingly becoming underrated.

Lillard will come back and be excellent because his game will age like Curry’s. He’s a prolific shooter and he suffered a small scale injury — he didn’t tear his ACL; he took the season off because it was decidedly one to use for draft positioning. That was clear.

Simons is a 6MOY candidate and will be even better next year. Josh Hart and Nassir Little will be MIP candidates next year respectively. Its almost as if no one realizes the Blazers have talent. They’ll likely resign Nurk, and either flip their pick or add a solid talent to their bench. The real dialogue is what happens with their Power Forward position, but health permitting, I suspect the Blazers sneak into playoffs next season with potential to upset a team depending on matchups. A good offseason (Bledsoe $20 million expiring deals + trade exceptions) give the Blazers useful tools to play with/package their lottery pick with. I suspect the Blazers will be better off than most realize.

Whether the ceiling of this team is a championship seems unlikely, but given the rapid development of teams like Dallas, Memphis, and the overwhelming upper tier teams’ poor performances due to injury or whatever (Nuggets, Lakers, Clippers, Suns) gives them hope to do something useful.

They may have gotten better returns for McCollum and Powell in the offseason, and the likely sale of the team definitely puts them in a weird spot, but they also are clearly at an inflection point. Relative to his previous performance, Dame looked terrible last year (yes I know, he was playing hurt), is a small guard on the wrong side of 30, and his next contract will probably be as bad as Harden’s. Dame and CJ are clearly better apart than together (neither is a great defender), and having Powell had the team with four key scorers 6’4 or shorter. If we’ve seen anything in these playoffs, it’s that a bunch of short dudes is not a great recipe. If they can trade Dame and nail their pick they’ll be in a good rebuilding spot, Dame is not going to be on the next Great Blazers team.

Even if they get a star for 7th pick, they won’t be playoff team, let alone title contenders. So the best thing would be to trade Lillard. for some young talent and draft picks. Next year draft will have some special prospects like Wenbanyama and Henderson. If they trade Lillard, they will be bottom 5 team, so with little luck, they could get franchise cornerstone to built with Simons, this year 7th pick and good role players like Hart and Little.

Portland had to do something they were only getting so far with their core and they changed coaches and that didn’t do much so blowing it up was the only option.

That wonderful word hindsight springs to mid here they could have got a fantastic deal for Dame and then flipped McCollum and probably been at the top of this year’s draft but who was to know Dame would get injured.

I just have a feeling Utah or Blazers could blow things up. If Ainge doesn’t press the button then I think Blazers might. But I just don’t see any of the teams in the top 3 of the draft wanting to trade out for Lillard. The Kings might throw a hail mary or could Houston and Thunder who have so many other picks due send a fair few of them in a deal for Dame but not their best pick this year?

Houston have John Wall to make the salaries balance and then Blazers would have loads of cap space in 2023.

My other thought is the Knicks, Lillard is the sort of big star they have been crying out for. Could send 11th pick, several future ones and expiring deals.