As a rebuilding team, the Portland Trail Blazers were widely criticized for sacrificing valuable draft capital to land Washington Wizards forward Deni Avdija.
It felt inevitable that they would ultimately move on from Malcolm Brogdon to avoid the luxury tax, but many anticipated that Portland would flip Brogdon for more future assets. Instead, general manager Joe Cronin made an aggresive move, adding Avdija to Portland's young core in exchange for Brogdon, Bub Carrington (14th overall pick), a 2029 first-round pick (second-most favorable), and two second-round picks (2028 and 2030).
Initially, ESPN's Kevin Pelton deemed the trade to be in the Wizards' favor, grading Washington a B+ and Portland a C+. However, he regraded the trade over the offseason, upgrading Portland to an A- while downgrading Washington to a B-.
Deni Avdija's star ascension validates Blazers' aggressive trade
As Pelton notes, the most significant difference in the narrative of this trade flipping in Portland's favor is Avdija's sustainable shooting improvement. His three-point efficiency jumped from 29.7% to 37.4% his final two seasons with the Wizards, leaving many to believe he was bound to regress in Portland. However, Avdija has hovered around that same 37% during his time with the Blazers, which has fueled his breakout.
He's now having a career season in Portland, making a legitimate All-Star case with averages of 24.9 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 5.4 assists per game. Making this deal even more lopsided is Avdija's team-friendly, front-loaded contract, which is arguably the best in the entire association.
"Given Avdija's favorable contract (descending from $14.4 million this season to $11.9 million in 2027-28), if Portland wanted to deal Avdija again, teams might offer even more first-round picks for him. The biggest issue is that Avdija's contract is so good, it probably will take using cap space for a renegotiation in the summer of 2027 to sign him to an extension," Pelton wrote.
Portland shouldn't actively explore trades for Avdija, given he's rapidly emerged as their franchise player this season. But Pelton does raise a good point: the Blazers need to proactively get ahead of Avdija's contract. From Portland's standpoint, it's not ideal timing-wise, as they weren't able to fully capitalize on his incredible contract to upgrade their roster to contention status.
In a vacuum, the Wizards had the correct rebuilding strategy, trading away talent to embrace a full-on rebuild. However, they should've held onto Avdija longer to trade him at peak value. Primarily due to improved shooting, there were already signs that Avdija could have this type of breakout with the Wizards. Maybe not quite to this extent, as Avdija has proven to be a perfect fit in Portland; still, it was clear he was trending upwards.
It's fair to wonder if he would've played this well in Washington, but fortunately for Portland, we'll never know. The Blazers' trade grade drastically improved just one year later, and it's still too low after Avdija's star ascension this season.