The Portland Trail Blazers nab a wing player from the Cleveland Cavaliers
Why this trade works:
Taurean Prince isn’t an especially exciting target for the Blazers, but he’ll certainly be useful off the bench. He’s a big forward who can move his feet a little on defense and is a career 37 percent shooter from deep.
He’ll provide much needed depth and versatility to the Portland reserve unit and won’t be too costly to obtain. At 27 years old, he’s a known commodity and doesn’t fit in with the Cleveland Cavaliers timeline.
Instead, they can use this trade to add two longshots, but still potentially effective young players.
The Portland Trail Blazers trade with the Orlando Magic for a spark plug wing
Why this trade works:
Terrence Ross is one of the rare role players that’s worthy of a first-round pick, especially one that’s almost guaranteed to fall outside of the lottery.
Ross is one of those incendiary scorers that threatens to light up for 30 points on any given night. Adding his high-level scoring ability to the Blazers bench would drastically boost their ceiling. Portland needs this exact type of player to come in when they’re in one of their infamous scoring droughts to see if he can get cooking and buoy the team while the starters take a breath.
The Orlando Magic here, further their rebuild by adding a young player in Derrick Jones Jr. and a future first-rounder. The Magic have already shipped off Aaron Gordon, Nikola Vucevic, and Evan Fournier; it’s obvious that Terrence Ross is the next piece to be moved.