Portland Trail Blazers need to aggressively pursue promising Knicks guard

After an awful stretch that began in mid-December and saw the Portland Trail Blazers go from three games over .500 to three games under .500 in less than a month, there have been signs of life emanating from Moda Center.

The Blazers won back-to-back games against the Dallas Mavericks, and even in a loss to what appears to be an unstoppable force in Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets, played significantly better all-around basketball.

The bench has improved with the returns of Gary Payton II and Nassir Little. An offense that was averaging 16 turnovers per game for the season has committed 29 total in its past three.

Damian Lillard is eighth in the NBA in scoring at 29.3 points per game after averaging 40.0 on 55 percent shooting in his last five. (He needs way more love in the Most Valuable Player discussion and all-star voting.)

But there are still holes to fill as Portland tries to gain ground in the Western Conference. GPII and Little aren’t offensive players by nature. Shaedon Sharpe leads the bench in scoring at 7.7 ppg, but a 19-year-old rookie can’t be the go-to option on the second unit of a contending team.

Even Josh Hart, the Blazers’ fifth starter, isn’t averaging double digits in scoring.

Some additional offensive firepower may be the team’s No. 1 need heading toward the Feb. 9 trade deadline, and there’s a young guard plying his trade in Madison Square Garden who might be a fit.

The Portland Trail Blazers should look hard at Immanuel Quickley

Immanuel Quickley is garnering “considerable external interest” from multiple teams, according to Marc Stein (h/t Bleacher Report).

The former Kentucky standout is averaging career highs in minutes, scoring, field-goal percentage, and plus-minus. In his last 10 games prior to Jan. 19, Quickley is scoring 18.9 ppg and adding 4.7 rebounds, and 3.5 assists – and less than one turnover, which should make Blazers fans smile.

Adding a scoring combo guard like Quickley to Portland’s bench would be a massive upgrade. Unfortunately for the Blazers, that means a relatively massive trade package.

In his report, Stein added that “strong signals emanating from Gotham indicate that New York is increasingly reluctant to part with him,” which makes sense given his increasingly important role on a playoff team and the year-plus left on his rookie contract.

That contract also makes it difficult to hand the Knicks, who are already over the salary cap, an enticing trade package. Portland – also over the cap – wouldn’t be able to sweeten any deal by taking on bad contracts.

This limits the Blazers to offering young players with potential and/or draft picks…but Portland has no draft picks this year. In terms of attractive young players still on rookie deals, the Blazers have Sharpe (untouchable) and Keon Johnson.

Little signed a new four-year contract that kicks in next season. That “poison pill” contract makes it so that his incoming salary in a trade is higher than his outgoing salary. He would surely qualify as an alluring asset to the Knicks, but the numbers wouldn’t work in this scenario unless New York parted ways with an additional player, which seems unlikely given their hesitation to even trade Quickley.

Justise Winslow’s expiring contract would work, as would Johnson’s deal, but not together, again unless the Knicks want to add another player to the trade.

That leaves either Winslow+picks or Johnson+picks as a package to grab New York’s attention. Portland does have control of their own firsts every season after this moving forward – the question is how many would it take to land Quickley, and would that be worth it?

Blazers’ general manager Joe Cronin would have to weigh the options: Land a productive, ascending young player on a rookie contract who would raise both the floor and ceiling of his team for the next season and a half? Or look for lesser alternatives and possibly keep control of all his future first-round picks?

Either way, Quickley is worth taking a long, hard look at.

All contract details courtesy of Spotrac.