With the Brooklyn Nets’ bold move to dump Allen Crabbe’s salary in pursuit of a big free agent, the scales may be tipping for the Portland Trail Blazers.
In the midst of the NBA Finals, the Brooklyn Nets decided to kick the offseason off early by dealing former Portland Trail Blazers shooting guard Allen Crabbe to the Atlanta Hawks.
Brooklyn’s primary objective in getting the deal done was to clear cap room for this summer’s crop of free agents. Multiple sources have reported that the Nets have a strong interest in Kyrie Irving, as well as potentially finding a suitable trade package for maligned superstar Anthony Davis.
In return, the Atlanta Hawks willingly ate Crabbe’s bloated salary to continue building up their enormous stockpile of draft picks. The Hawks now possess no. 8, 10 and 17 overall in the upcoming draft. Another three second-round picks in the top-45 are just the cherry on top. The Hawks are presumably loading up on picks to move up in this year’s draft and grab an immediate impact player like R.J. Barrett.
Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN was the first to deliver full details about the trade.
Brooklyn is trading Allen Crabbe and No. 17 pick in 2019 NBA Draft and protected first in 2020 to Atlanta for Taurean Prince and 2021 second-round pick, league sources tell ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 6, 2019
Not only did Brooklyn unload Crabbe’s albatross contract from the payroll, they also received the 25-year-old Taurean Prince in exchange. As discussed earlier this week on Rip City Project, last season Prince was a threat to hit the deep ball whenever he was on the court, hitting 39 percent of his three-pointers on 5.7 attempts per game.
Atlanta did not believe Prince had the shot creating abilities to warrant keeping on the roster for the foreseeable future; However, the Nets will be ecstatic to pick a great shooter to fill in as a role player for the cheap price tag of $3.5 million. If Prince continues to develop, he could also be brought back considering the Nets will receive his bird rights.
For as long as basketball has seemed to exist, the New York Knicks have banked on the allure of The Big Apple to net the team big name free agents. However the Knicks have yet to learn the simple truth about these elite players: great players like to play with other great players.
The Celtics of old, the Showtime Lakers, the Jordan era Bulls, LeBron and Wade’s Heatles and the current Golden State dynasty all have one thing in common. Great players want to stick around a winning environment. Practically speaking, it’s better for their brand, legacy and contract negotiations. It makes too much sense.
Now imagine a world where the New York Knicks are actually a good basketball team. Imagine the New York Knicks had great management and internal structure. Imagine the New York Knicks were actually capable of using the New York City angle to attract basketball’s biggest stars.
Congratulations, you just imagined the current Brooklyn Nets.
With the Nets already established as a playoff threat without any max level free agents, they’ll use that as a selling point to draw top-tier free agents to the Eastern Conference. Moving players like Kevin Durant to the Eastern Conference and keeping players like Irving away from Portland’s pair of Western Conference rivals in Los Angeles would greatly enhance the Blazers chances during future playoff runs.
If Brooklyn can make a move for Anthony Davis, one of the top five best players in the league would also be on his way out of the Western Conference. The Nets grabbing him is much preferable to playing against a LeBron James and Davis tandem multiple times a year. Portland should particularly be rooting for this move, after suffering a vicious series sweep in the opening round of the 2018 playoffs at the hands of Davis and co.
The recent redistribution of the NBA’s top talent to the Eastern Conference forces some of the best teams in the league to beat each other down before ever potentially meeting the Blazers in the finals.
An additional benefit the Portland Trail Blazers would receive from Brooklyn hunting down a pair of superstars would be a slightly easier regular season schedule. An 82 game season can be a grind; going the Popovich route and managing the stars’ minutes will allow the team to get some rest in preparation for another attempt at the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
As the NBA Finals near their conclusion and the offseason rumor mill beginning to rev up its engines, watching the conclusion of Brooklyn’s bold cap move is just one of many that may affect the Portland Trail Blazers. The NBA Draft is on June 20 and should be full of more trades, while free agency is set to officially begin on the first of July.