Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups is testing out different starting lineup combinations in the preseason to figure out what works best. With Scoot Henderson's injury, Portland now has six capable starters. In other words, this wouldn't even be a dilemma if Jerami Grant weren't in the picture!
In their first preseason game, Billups elected to bring Deni Avdija -- you know, arguably their best player -- off the bench. That's the opportunity cost of Grant still being on this roster.
Whether it's paying him $160 million to come off the bench, the opportunity cost of having a better, younger, and cheaper player coming off the bench, or paying in the form of adding additional assets to trade their negative asset, it's clear Portland has an expensive Grant problem on its hands.
What should the Blazers do with Jerami Grant?
Remember when general manager Joe Cronin was asking for two first-round picks in exchange for Grant? They should have just taken a salary filler and a half-eaten potato chip and called it a day! Having a time machine is the only way for the Blazers to come away clean from this Grant nightmare, as his salary and declining production have made him arguably the worst contract in the entire association.
Grant had a massive down year in 2024-25, averaging 14.4 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 2.1 assists. Those aren't horrible numbers at first glance, but things get much uglier when you zoom in on his efficiency of 37.3% from the field. Grant averaged 21.0 points while shooting 45.1% from the field and 40.2% from beyond the arc just one season prior. He's bound for positive regression this season... right? Well, if the first preseason game was any indication, Blazers fans shouldn't get their hopes up.
Despite his questionable starting role, Grant finished with just eight points, five rebounds, and one assist, shooting 2-of-11 from the field and 1-of-5 from deep. Any hopes of building up his trade value to the point where Portland doesn't have to sacrifice valuable future assets should be crushed by now.
The Blazers are taking a long-term approach with their rebuild and understandably don't want to attach valuable assets just to offload Grant, hence why he's still on the roster. That's the smart approach, all things considered. Now, their "best" option is to overpay Grant and have him come off the bench in a sixth-man role.
It still remains to be seen if Billups will actually implement that -- for what it's worth, at media day, Grant said he doesn't expect to come off the bench this season. How do you shoot 37.3% from the field as a one-dimensional score-first player for an entire season and not expect to be benched the following year?
To be fair, Grant had a down year by his own admission last season. Perhaps he really is due for positive regression, but so far in preseason, there have been no indicators of that being the case.