The Portland Trail Blazers and Los Angeles Lakers make sense as potential trade partners, with the two teams headed in opposite directions in terms of their timelines. Los Angeles has a newly turned 40-year-old LeBron James and is trying to make a playoff run while his window is still open. Meanwhile, Portland is in the second year of rebuilding and still has veterans on its roster that they are open to trading.
Both teams have been closely monitored as potential buyers and sellers, especially this past offseason when the Lakers were mentioned with practically every big-name trade target. But no major deals materialized outside of the Blazers' acquiring Deni Avdija from Washington. That was largely because Blazers' GM Joe Cronin and Lakers' GM Rob Pelinka are extremely firm negotiators, arguably to a fault.
Cronin knows it's a long and ongoing rebuilding process and wants to maximize his return for veterans. Pelinka knows that it's unlikely the Lakers will win another championship before LeBron retires because of their lack of supporting cast. He doesn't want to sacrifice too many significant future assets in pursuit of something that is unlikely to happen.
Latest Lakers-Nets trade spells trouble for Blazers
From the Blazers' standpoint, the issue is that they may have missed their window to trade away some of their veterans at peak value. The Lakers' latest deal with the Brooklyn Nets exemplifies why that appears to be the case.
Here are the details of that trade:
The three second-round picks the Nets receive are 2027, 2030, and 2031, all from the Lakers.
This deal doesn't necessarily mean that the Blazers won't make a trade with the Lakers before the Feb. 6 trade deadline. Los Angeles could still make a potential deal work financially with salary fillers like Rui Hachimura ($17 million), Gabe Vincent ($11 million), and Jarred Vanderbilt ($10.7 million). And Portland's players, most notably Jerami Grant and Robert Williams III, make sense if they want to continue upgrading their roster.
Market shift puts pressure on Blazers' asking price
The more significant issue is that valuable pieces like Dorian Finney-Smith, a 3-and-D wing shooting 43.5 percent from deep this season, can be had for an extremely reasonable price. The new CBA makes every trade much more difficult and places more value on second-round picks due to their cheaper contracts. As a result, role players like Dennis Schroder and DFS are being traded for just multiple second-round picks.
Marc Stein highlighted this shift in the trade market on The Stein Line, writing, "The Nets are now said to be seeking multiple first-round picks from teams interested in trading for sharpshooter Cam Johnson. Can they really expect to get more than one first-rounder for Johnson after the deals just witnessed for Schröder and Finney-Smith?"
Stein referred to the Nets' reported asking price of multiple first-round picks for Cam Johnson, but the same issue applies to the Blazers' veterans, especially Jerami Grant. Why would teams want to give up future first-round picks to take on Grant's massive contract, especially considering he's having a down year, and they can acquire someone almost as impactful for significantly less?
Stein went on to mention other cheaper alternatives that make more sense for teams to pursue. "Other veterans believed to be available for second-round draft compensation with to go until the trade deadline include Valančiūnas and Brogdon, Toronto's Kelly Olynyk and Bruce Brown and Utah's Jordan Clarkson."
The Blazers could still get a deal done involving a veteran like Grant. Sean Highkin of The Rose Garden Report has previously mentioned that he believes Grant is the 'most likely' Blazers player to be traded. But Portland's leverage continues to shrink with each bargain deal involving second-round picks.