Portland Trail Blazers trade expiring contracts for flexibility
It’s no secret that Covington and Nurkic are on the block; the team has made it publicly known, and we’ve been trying to trade the two lumbering sourpusses for weeks.
Their mythical reputations as defensive stalwarts — invisible to anyone who has watched them play this season — and relative value on expiring deals make them valuable trade targets.
Nurkic makes $12 million and Covington just under $13 million this season and both are unrestricted free agents who will somehow manage to extract long-term deals worth more than that this offseason.
In this deal, the two lazy lumps are traded for some sorely needed defensive frontcourt help and a shutdown perimeter defender in Quickley, who has been made expendable by the emergence of rookie Quentin Grimes.
Samanic is on a two-way deal and comes with only a minimum qualifying offer for next season, so is a low-risk probably-no-reward move, and Walker would get himself out of a tough situation with the fickle Thibodeau.
The Knicks don’t seem to have any use for Walker, and the Blazers really don’t either, so expect him to be near the top of a long list of useful players who are bought out after mid-season trades. There are plenty of teams in need of a savvy scoring veteran; the Blazers aren’t one of them.
Gibson and Robinson are massive upgrades to the Portland’s interior and rotational defense, and the only two players with guaranteed salaries next year are Gibson and Quickley at $5.15 million and $2.31 million, respectively.