The Portland Trail Blazers need to make roster upgrades by the Feb. 5 trade deadline in order to bolster their defensive identity. One trade target who makes perfect sense to accomplish this is Sacramento Kings guard Keon Ellis.
Ellis is just one of several Kings trade candidates as the team looks to finally escape purgatory. Dan Woike of The Athletic notes that the expected price tag on Ellis is a protected first-round pick. That's a polarizing price tag, with Woike noting that Ellis is "maybe the most divisive player in the league."
Keon Ellis is worth the risk for Portland
On the one hand, Ellis is a valuable 3-and-D guard. Through four seasons, he's shot 41.8% from beyond the arc while forcing 1.2 steals in 19.2 minutes per game.
On the other hand, some point out that Ellis has failed to play a key role on a struggling Kings roster. He's now found himself in the doghouse with two different coaching staffs. Woike also adds that there are concerns that his steal rate is misleading and not representative of his overall defensive impact. He's not the most versatile defender at 6-foot-4 and 174 pounds, and he tends to gamble on defense.
"While the shooting part of the equation is there with Ellis (he’s a career 42 percent shooter from 3), the defensive impact is where the gamble exists. Some people think of Ellis as a defender more suited for creating turnovers than he is at actually slowing down opponents."
Woike says the Los Angeles Lakers are a team that makes sense as a landing spot, but doesn't anticipate them being the only team in their pursuit. Portland should be a team in that mix as the cons for trading for Ellis outweigh the pros, even if it costs them a valuable protected first-rounder.
The Blazers picked up an additional 2028 first-round pick (via Orlando) in their draft-day trade with the Memphis Grizzlies. Could that be enough to land Ellis? Orlando has a promising young core and projects to be one of the strongest teams out east by then. Portland could add a more established player in Ellis, who would still fit its rebuilding timeline at 25 years old.
The eye test suggests that Ellis is a better player than he's been in Sacramento, and this may be an instance where he would benefit from a change of scenery to a more stable environment. At the beginning of the season, we saw the Blazers unlock Blake Wesley, who was a perfect fit for their defensive identity. Perhaps that could be the case with Ellis as well.
With how many injuries Portland has dealt with in the backcourt, it's worth exploring.