On January fifth, NBA teams are able to start signing players to ten-day contracts. Which players would be worth a look for the Trail Blazers?
The Trail Blazers are still short-handed in a general sense. Regardless of their playoff aspirations they still need enough fit bodies to complete the regular season. Since Christmas day, Skal Labissiere has gone down hurt, and unfortunately it looks like it may be an injury of the serious type.
The big man rotation is of the biggest concern. They are still five weeks away from the return of Jusuf Nurkic, so a four / five is of need at the moment. Rebounding and fouling are still two major issues, so some extra size would help address this.
In an ideal world they would sign someone that can play competent defense, and then knock down the odd shot. Obviously the free agent market isn’t full of great options, but beggars can’t be choosers.
The other need on this roster is shooting and production on the wing. Young players like Nassir Little and Gary Trent Jr are having to do a lot of heavy lifting which probably isn’t ideal considering their ages and where they are at in their development. There may still be a major trade coming for this team, but in the meantime they should hit the free agent market and look for some size in combination with offensive production.
Quickly touching on the ten-day contract rules, because the Blazers have 14 players under contract, they can sign two players to ten-day deals. A ten-day contract is defined as either ten days with the team or three games, whichever is longer. A team may also sign a player to a second ten-day deal, but if they want the player to play for the team after that, then they need to be signed to a full NBA deal.
Even if they were to sign any of these players to a full NBA deal, it only needs to be till the end of the season at the veterans minimum. There would be no reason to sign someone to a deal for anything past this season.
Without further ado here are five players that can come in and help this team right away!