The NBA trade deadline has come and gone, leaving the Portland Trail Blazers with their roster set for the regular season stretch run.
In the eight games since the trade deadline, the Blazers are only 2-6, needing 71 points from Damian Lillard in one game and 40 in another to get wins against the Houston Rockets and Los Angeles Lakers, two teams below them in the standings.
That hasn’t inspired much confidence in their ability to make a playoff push, especially as they have the eighth-toughest remaining schedule in the NBA.
Still, it might be confusing to contemplate the idea that Portland would consider trading arguably their second-best player in Anfernee Simons. As a 23-year-old playing in his fifth season, Simons has balled out to the tune of 21 points and 4 assists per game and 38 percent 3-point shooting on high volume.
He’s also just starting a large extension that the team signed him to last offseason.
If the Trail Blazers are serious about building a contender around Damian Lillard, however, they need to be open to making big changes to their roster. Simons is a great young piece, but he also plays a similar brand of basketball to Lillard at a lower level.
He’s a defensive sieve, doesn’t have great size for his position, and isn’t playing the ideal role for his game.
Given the Blazers already have a franchise guard, any trade that sends Simons out will need to bring a big fish in. Here are three deals that could give the Blazers a better chance to contend for an NBA title by giving Lillard a better supporting cast for the postseason.
Trade #1: Anfernee Simons for Mikal Bridges
This may seem like a surprising trade, given how many offers for multiple first-round picks the Nets declined for Bridges at the deadline, but the terms of many deals were never released. That indicates that they weren’t premium selections offered, making Bridges’ value a bit closer to one or two first-round picks or a team-controlled young star.
Enter Anfernee Simons. Despite a few bursts of scoring from Cam Thomas and the steady play of Spencer Dinwiddie, Simons would immediately become the best guard in Brooklyn. He’d thrive in a role that would let him handle the ball more as a primary creator and could develop into a star under Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn’s coaching.
For the Blazers, the deal makes a lot of sense. They spent most of the trade deadline trying to grab their wing of the future, acquiring Cam Reddish, Matisse Thybulle, and Kevin Knox, but imagine combining all three of these players into one wing. That’s Bridges in a nutshell.
He’s a certified defensive stopper who has been a top-class role player his entire career until his trade to Brooklyn in the Kevin Durant blockbuster. In his eight games in Brooklyn, Bridges has flexed a surprising amount of scoring potential, averaging 25 points in a more featured role.
It may take some draft picks alongside Simons to get him, but acquiring this version of Bridges would be grabbing Damian Lillard a co-star that fits beautifully next to him. He looks ready to be a secondary scorer, plays a position of need on the wing, defends players of all sizes at a high level, and is under team control for years to come.
If the Blazers are serious about contending, they could do a lot worse than grabbing one of the best young two-way wings in the league.
Trade #2: Anfernee Simons and Shaedon Sharpe for Pascal Siakam
What the Blazers need to become a serious contender is a better defense and another star to pair with Lillard. Dame has shown he can carry a great NBA offense on his own, but giving him a Robin to his Batman would do wonders for the team, especially when offenses sputter in the playoffs.
This Simons trade hinges on the Raptors making a curious move after their trade deadline shenanigans. Instead of zigging and tanking by shipping off players, the Raptors zagged and traded for Jakob Poeltl.
They’re in a play-in position now, but will be on the hook for giving both Poeltl and Fred VanVleet a new contract this summer.
A shrewd general manager like Masai Ujiri has probably taken stock of his roster and figured out that Pascal Siakam can’t be a top option on a contender. As a secondary option behind Lillard, however, Siakam is a perfect fit.
He’s a versatile power forward who can carry a scoring load, make plays for others, and defend at a solid clip. This all-around game has paid off in All-NBA appearances for Siakam – that’s the exact type of player the Blazers need to contend.
In this hypothetical scenario, the Raptors would let VanVleet walk and get a younger, arguably better point guard in Simons and an athletic (and local) flier in Sharpe.
Simons would be the starting point guard and have OG Anunoby, Scottie Barnes, and Poeltl to pass to, each of whom can cover up his defensive deficiencies. Sharpe would have more time to develop into a potential star without the pressure that Portland has to win now.
This trade would represent a seismic shift for two teams stuck in the middle of their respective conferences, but if Siakam is offered on the market this year, the Blazers should explore every option available, including trading their young back court, to grab a player of his caliber.
Trade #3: Anfernee Simons and Shaedon Sharpe for Karl-Anthony Towns
Similar to the trade above, this move would not be done in a vacuum for either team. Rather, this move would stem from the Blazers leaning farther toward their strengths and the Wolves deciding to reorient the north star of their franchise.
Towns has been the face of the Timberwolves since they drafted him No. 1 overall in 2015, but while he’s in the prime of his career and an all-star caliber player, he may have been unwittingly squeezed out by his untimely injury.
Since he went down, Anthony Edwards has emerged as the team’s star and developed better chemistry with recent acquisition Rudy Gobert, whose defensive presence at center has helped the Wolves climb back into play-in contention.
If KAT is the odd star out in Minnesota, the Blazers would be remiss in not inquiring about this trade. They’d need to move on from Jusuf Nurkic, which might take a draft pick or two, but it’s bad practice to hold onto a good starter over a star player.
The offensive combination of Towns and Lillard would be one of the best one-two punches in the league and could be good enough to make up for the defensive issues the team would continue to have with Towns at center.
The rationale for the Wolves in making this trade is to fully support and hand the keys to Edwards. Simons’ scoring gravity would give him more room to operate, while Sharpe’s upside could come in handy as a bench sparkplug or in a trade to get more defensive talent.
A backcourt of Simons and Edwards, with a backstop of Gobert and Jaden McDaniels, would be a fearsome combination of mish-mashed skills.
More importantly, however, is that the Blazers would have a genuine All-NBA talent to pair with Dame. Towns is in his athletic prime and signed for the next five years, which gives the team time to retool the roster and shore up the defense around them.
Given that it’s a star’s game in the NBA, the Blazers would have the difficult part of the equation solved and more leeway to figure out the smaller details of building a contending team.