Trail Blazers: 4 players most likely to be moved before trade deadline

Let’s make one thing clear: trading for Kent Bazemore over the summer was absolutely the right move to make. He’s got shades of Danny Green to his game that help make good teams great teams. As much as we all loved Evan Turner, his role on the team was obsolete and provided an overall negligible impact in the win column.

Bazemore had the potential to be the type of player that hits clutch threes and plays hard defense that can turn the tide of a close game. Unfortunately, he has not been the role player messiah Portland needed.

Before December, Bazemore was hitting just 32.4 percent of his 3-point shots. However he’s experienced a hot streak this month, drilling 42.4 percent of his shots from outside over this 14 game span. Considering he holds a 35.3 career 3-point percentage, we can probably soon expect to see some regression in that department, which makes him the perfect sell-high candidate.

Bazemore is owed $19.3 million this year, before he comes off the books for good at season’s end. This makes him more valuable as a trade chip than as an actual asset to a team. When the Portland Trail Blazers are fully healthy, Bazemore is not even a top three shooting guard on this roster.

That means we can expect Neil Olshey to try flipping his contract before we cross the trade deadline, ideally to bring in some help at either forward position and secure a dependable player that has a few years remaining on his contract. With limited financial capital available, Portland’s savviness at the trade deadline could affect the team for year’s to come.