The Portland Trail Blazers Should Consider Trading with the Atlanta Hawks

Prince and Bazemore add wing depth.

Questions over the Trail Blazers wing depth have risen throughout the year.

Maurice Harkless has been in-and-out of the lineup with left knee soreness dating back to last season. Although Harkless regularly provides a defensive presence at the small forward position, his offense is sporadic and the team feels flatter during his minutes. Shooting only .305 from deep, defenses don’t respect him out there. And when Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum aren’t finding him on cuts, he quickly becomes invisible.

Jake Layman is one of Portland’s biggest feel-good stories of the year. The turtle has emerged from his shell, shooting .356 from three and punishing relaxed defenders with alley-oop dunks off a deadly backdoor cut nearly every night. However, with his lack of experience, there will be questions over his consistency until he proves it over time.

Nik Stauskas, after a hot start, has already begun losing his spot in the rotation and will likely not factor into the postseason.

Both Taurean Prince and Kent Bazemore help shore up this depth chart. Each provides defense that rivals Harkless’s and shooting that rivals Layman’s. Essentially, they would allow the Blazers to answer “yes” to the question of “offense or defense” at the small forward position.

Bazemore, as a part-time shooting guard, could also grade out as a better option than Seth Curry for the second-unit. While Curry is certainly the more accurate shooter, Bazemore provides better defensive switch-ability without sacrificing much in the way of floor-spacing.

Prince occasionally plays the power forward for Atlanta and could factor into some interesting Blazers lineups when Al-Farouq Aminu is not shooting well. While Aminu is absolutely the better defender and rebounder, his shot can range from hot-hand to abysmal. If the Blazers need a higher-powered look, they could employ Prince at the four and Layman at the three.

Dedmon adds more reliability to big man rotation

By adding Dewayne Dedmon, the Blazers would bring more reliability to their current big man rotation.

Although Meyers Leonard has performed admirably this season, there’s no telling how the streaky big will perform into the playoffs. And while Zach Collins has improved in his second-year, he is still prone to regular clunker performances.

Dedmon provides a similar stretchiness to Leonard and Collins, as a .377 three-point shooter, while being a better rebounder than both of them. While he is clearly the better defender between him and Leonard, he and Zach are much closer in this area, with Dedmon just as much a culprit of fouling.

If Dedmon can continue his hot shooting in Portland, the Blazers could replace Leonard at center with a much better defender and rebounder who can still hit the three. He and Collins or Aminu could then make for an interesting pair.