The Portland Trail Blazers are in the midst of a chase for play-in position in the 2025 NBA Playoffs. Whether they make it or not, whether they succeed there or not, their fate does not rest on anything that happens this April. Since the beginning of the season, fans and observers alike have been pointing to this June’s NBA Draft and points beyond as key markers along Portland’s growth journey.
Along the way, the Blazers have gotten surprisingly good contributions from new forward Deni Avdija, plus young, incumbent members of the roster: Scoot Henderson, Shaedon Sharpe, Toumani Camara, Donovan Clingan. That quintet offers as bright of a hope as any for the future.
Less-mentioned are Portland’s more experienced players: Jerami Grant, Anfernee Simons, Deandre Ayton, Robert Williams III. When it comes to these familiar names, public sentiment seems to favor trades, freeing up space for newly-minted potential stars, perhaps clearing cap space, supposedly accelerating the rebuilding process.
Not coincidentally, that’s exactly the argument behind today’s Blazer’s Edge Mailbag question. Let’s look.
Dave,
Do the Blazers know it’s time to trade Ant, Ayton, Grant, and the older guys? It seems so clear that Scoot and Deni and Tou are the next gen stars. But we’ve gotten no word that we’re actually going to see the older players moved this summer or even that the Blazers are in the market. Some people are even saying that Ant and Ayton will be resigned. Why? Can you get in the mind of Cronin and the front office and assure me that trading them is a strong option at least?
Mark
Trades are certainly an open possibility. I’d be surprised if we got through the summer ahead without seeing at least one significant deal. What’s more, I think a new type of trade has come on the board. Heretofore we’ve been talking about exchanging more experienced players (nobody on Portland’s roster is truly old) for future draft picks and young prospects. Given the growth of the current core, I think the Blazers might be amenable to acquiring established players with targeted skillsets, probably not 30-year-olds, but early-to-mid-20’s players who might be underutilized in their current locations. It’s quite possible that the options for trading Grant and Ayton expanded this year from Portland’s point of view, even if they contracted somewhat for potential trade partners.
Nobody can get into the mind of a General Manager or front office entirely. Their viewpoints, goals, and methodologies are distinct from each other and from the public. Those viewpoints and goals probably evolve over time, with changing circumstances. Predicting priorities is dicey. I’d not presume to do it with authority here.
I could certainly tell you what I think Portland’s best course is given their current situation. It includes trading some of the players mentioned above. It definitely does not include extending their contracts. I’m not the one tasked with making those decisions, though. We’re going to have to listen to Joe Cronin and company in order to ascertain their motives and solutions.
Understanding that they’re different than we are is the beginning of wisdom in these matters, also the beginning of seeing the real possibilities.
In general, fans appear to be approaching the summer asking which Portland players can be traded. See also: the list above differentiating Sharpe, Camara, et al from Grant and Simons. Fans are judging some of the more experienced players as redundant, maybe useless, and asking what price they’ll fetch on the market.
This is likely to be the opposite approach from a professional front office in a couple ways.
First, the people in that office drafted, signed, or traded for the players on the roster. They’re familiar with the strengths and talent that made those players desirable in the first place. They literally went out and chose them. That doesn’t mean the front office will hold onto players past their “best by” date out of idealism or loyalty. It does mean that a front office will be less likely to jettison the potential and/or track record of their players than comparatively fickle, now-based fans will. The idea of getting rid of a player just to get rid of them (“addition by subtraction” or whatever you want to call it) is less likely to hold sway in a professional setting than in fan conversation.
That’s doubly true because of a second distinction. A front office has to view players as a resource, part of a finite set of assets available to carry a team towards its goals. Each franchise has 15 roster spots to spend. Each franchise is limited by the salary cap, luxury tax, and revenue concerns. All franchises operate under the same umbrella of draft rules and jockey for the same free-agent signing opportunities. On-court performance is only part of the story. How a player fits into that larger structure matters too.
Players have economic value in the NBA’s draft/trade/salary system the same way cash in your pocket has value as you walk into Wal-Mart. The better positioned you are with it, the more you can get in return when you spend it. Critically, no matter how much you have, you want to make sure that you’re using the resource wisely to get just what you need when you do spend it.
When you and I talk about trading Anfernee Simons this summer, it’s a little bit like walking into Wal-Mart with forty bucks in our pocket saying, “Ok, what can we get for this?” That’s certainly one way to shop, but efficiency and financial experts would advise against it. We’re using resources without a firm grasp on what we’re trying to accomplish with same. We haven’t asked important questions like, “What are we doing in Wal-Mart to begin with? What are we trying to purchase with that money? Why do we need this thing? What exactly does it do for us?”
Professionals in a front office are much more likely to take an inverse approach, more similar to our financial experts. They’re going to start by asking, “What do we need here?” Only then will they start considering which store to walk into and how much it’s going to cost.
Asking, “Will the Blazers trade a player this summer?” is exactly backwards. If we want to look at this like a front office, we need to ask, “What are the Blazers looking to acquire or accomplish? What would help them most?” We need to know what we’re looking for and we need to know that Wal-Mart has it in stock before we even set foot in the store.
After determining need, a couple other questions come up. One is, “What’s the best method of addressing this need: draft, signing, trade, or internal growth?” We’d also ask, “Is this the most opportune time to make this kind of decision or might a better opportunity arise in the future?”
Only when the answer specifically reads, “We need X, the best way to get ‘X’ is via trade, and the best opportunity to do it is likely to be right now,” would we actually come down to talking about Simons, Grant, or other players on the table.
At that point, the issue is quite specific, and at least marginally easier to answer. Instead of dealing with a generality like, “Should we trade Deandre Ayton?” we answer the targeted query, “Will we trade Deandre Ayton (and whatever other assets are being requested) to get ‘X’?”
Now circling back to the original question, you can see why it’s pretty hard to answer.
Does Portland’s front office know it’s time to trade some of their more experienced players? That’s kind of like asking, “Hey Joe, do you realize it’s time to spend $40?” First, is it really? Second, for what? Without the answer to those questions, we can’t talk about it intelligently.
The best we can do is ask, “If the Blazers did have a chance to make a trade for an asset they really desired, are there any players they wouldn’t be willing to put on the table this summer?” I would argue no. We can talk about Deni Avdija and Toumani Camara, but if the Milwaukee Bucks offered Giannis Antetokounmpo, there would be some discussion there.
I think we can say that Avdija and Camara would top the list of the hardest players to get from Portland right now. I also think it’s safe to say that it would be easier to get the Blazers to trade Ayton and Grant, maybe Simons too, this summer than it would have been last summer, in part because of their remaining contracts and in part because of the development of the roster behind them.
That’s at least a partial answer to your question, the best we can do. If they get a good offer, the Blazers aren’t going to say no to a deal for any of those experienced players. If they don’t get a good offer, I doubt we really want them to say yes. But that’s as far as the thinking goes absent inside information that we don’t have.
Fortunately, summer is only 11 games and a couple months away. We’re all going to find out the answer to this question as that time unfolds before us. Until then the results are hard to predict. But yes, in a loose way, I’d say there’s a chance that you’re going to get your wish. Now shift the mindset and start asking what you really want in return and how it makes the team better.
Thanks for the question! You can always send yours to blazersub@gmail.com and we’ll try to respond to as many as possible!