In 2022, the Portland Trail Blazers shipped CJ McCollum, Larry Nance Jr., and Tony Snell to the New Orleans Pelicans in exchange for Josh Hart, Tomas Satoransky, Didi Louzada, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and draft capital.
Just one day later, Alexander-Walker was traded to the Utah Jazz for Joe Ingles, Elijah Hughes, and a second-round pick. Remind you that was an aging Ingles who had a torn ACL.
The motivation behind the trade was financial. Portland was able to get out of money and dodge the tax. But fast forward to the 2025-26 season, and Alexander-Walker's ascension is making this decision look worse than ever. A once-minor trade has snowballed into one of the worst moves of the entire Joe Cronin era.
Portland turned a rising star into an expired bag of chips
It might even be considered an avalanche at this point, as NAW is coming off a 41-point performance with the Atlanta Hawks.
Portland has very little to show from these moves. They sent Hart to the New York Knicks, coming away with a first-round pick that turned into Kris Murray, who is on the brink of being considered a draft bust with an unreliable three-point shot.
The second round pick in the Ingles trade became Jabari Walker, who the Blazers also gave up on too soon, as he walked in free agency this past summer. But that's nothing compared to missing out on the ceiling of NAW.
Alexander-Walker has finally reached his prime at 27 years old, and it's even better than anyone expected. With the Hawks, his production has increased to 20.3 points, 3.7 assists, 3.5 rebounds, and 1.3 steals per game.
No one knew Alexander-Walker would turn into this level of player, but Portland's trade was still a puzzling decision at the time. In 2023, Zach Lowe was already questioning why the Blazers didn't keep him around.
"You're like, 'oh, that's like a smart flyer for a team to take,' and then a day later, dumped him to Utah for Joe Ingles, who was injured and on an expiring contract. I just never understood that. And he was like pretty good in Utah and pretty good in Minnesota, who resigned him," Lowe said on The Lowe Post.
The most confusing part is that Alexander-Walker is the exact type of player Cronin tends to take flyers on. With a 6-foot-5 frame, he has the versatility Portland's front office covets. And throughout this rebuild, the Blazers have gone from one high-upside project to another in hopes of finding a gem.
Well, they found one in 2022, and they traded him away the next day.