The Indiana Pacers just announced a fire sale and the Portland Trail Blazers have should have plenty of trade interest
The injury-hobbled 11-14 Portland Trail Blazers may not be far behind in the long line of teams that could be exchanging stars before the February 10 trade deadline. Coincidentally, the Indiana Pacers have just made their best players available.
The underperforming and increasingly desperate Blazers have plenty of valuable trade assets — emerging stars in Anfernee Simons and Nassir Little, a veteran scorer in CJ McCollum, and the expiring contracts of Jusuf Nurkic ($12 million) and Robert Covington (just under $13 million) — so expect them to be active.
The Pacers are open to trade talks around Caris LeVert and either Domantas Sabonis or Myles Turner, per @ShamsCharania and @bkravitz pic.twitter.com/NX5DQtrF86
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) December 7, 2021
Pacers General Manager Chad Buchanan — who has the name, face, and hair of an 80’s high school movie bad guy — will be a very busy man with the offers that should be rolling his way. The Pacers have a locker room full of players who could help the Blazers defensively and three stars with very friendly contracts.
Indiana actually has the same problem in the frontcourt with Sabonis and Turner as the Blazers do at guard with Lillard and McCollum, but with opposite pluses and minuses, and both pairs would be better split up than they have been together.
McCollum and Malcolm Brogdon would make a more complementary starting guard pair than Brodgon and LeVert, and LeVert would be a vast improvement defensively over whatever the Blazers have been able to throw at opposing point guards so far this season.
And Sabonis and/or Turner would be a most welcome upgrade from Portland’s complete lack of defensive rim presence or interior toughness. Yes, I’m looking at you, Nurkic and Covington.
So with all of that in mind, let’s take a look at three possible trades the Blazers and Pacers could make: