The Portland Trail Blazers had an almost entirely silent NBA trade deadline. They traded a top-55 protected second-round pick in 2027 for guard Delano Banton and cash. No Jerami Grant blockbuster. No Malcolm Brogdon deal.
A large chunk of Rip City fans aren't pleased. But they shouldn't rush to judgement.
Blazers GM Joe Cronin made the right move by making no moves at the NBA trade deadline
Apologies to Banton. Maybe he'll end up being a core piece of Portland's future. But it seems fair to bypass such a minor move for now.
The question fans will be asking is this: Why not move veterans like Brogdon and Grant to give more minutes to Scoot Henderson, Kris Murray, Rayan Rupert, Jabari Walker and other young players? They're the future of the organization; they need to play.
Sure, in theory that plan makes perfect sense. But it's not as straightforward as that.
Cronin did the right thing by making no moves at the deadline. (Again, sorry Delano.) Here's why.
The Trail Blazers don't need to add more young players
If Cronin traded his vets, he was targeting players, not picks, as he reiterated in his post-deadline press conference per Aaron Fentress of The Oregonian/Oregon Live:
"If there’s great value, we’ll add picks. If it’s great value, we’ll add players. But generally speaking, the deals we were pursuing were more player-oriented. Could we find a guy that provides immediate and long-term help? And is there proper value there?"Blazers GM Joe Cronin
Portland was the fourth-youngest team entering the 2023-24 season with an average age of 24.786. That's younger than other rebuilding teams like the Washington Wizards and even the Detroit Pistons. The Blazers have 12 players under the age of 25 already - franchise building blocks Scoot, Shaedon Sharpe and Anfernee Simons among them.
If the goal was to simply get rid of older players to open minutes for young ones, consider the following example:
Portland ships out Brogdon so Scoot can get more playing time. But instead of adding more picks, Cronin follows his plan and lands another promising young guard instead. We'll call him Player X. But the goal is still to get young players as many minutes as possible, right? So now, head coach Chauncey Billups has to find a way to get both Scoot and Player X minutes.
By keeping Brogdon, Billups can gradually decrease the veteran's minutes while increasing Henderson's but still retain a player who's proven to be valuable to Scoot's development.
Getting younger just for the sake of getting younger isn't smart. And getting younger just to add future draft picks isn't necessarily worth it, because ...
The Blazers are already stocked with draft picks
Per ESPN's Bobby Marks, 11 NBA teams controlled 75 percent of all available first-round picks before Thursday's deadline. Portland is one of them. The franchise's full list of picks can be found here, but the Trail Blazers own two first-rounders this year, all of their own firsts through 2030 (unless they make the postseason between now and 2028); 2029 firsts via Milwaukee and Boston; and the possibility of two first-round swaps with the Bucks in 2028 and 2030.
Even including the Banton trade, Cronin also has access to seven second-rounders between now and 2030.
Scoot, Simons and Sharpe are franchise centerpieces who aren't going anywhere. Portland has Murray, Walker, Rupert, Toumani Camara and Duop Reath as developmental players who will likely stick around for a while. That's at least eight young players the Blazers already have under contract that represent some part of the franchise's future.
Add 12 first-round picks into the fray and Portland will be running out of space to add prospects to its rebuild, which leads to point No. 3.
Where were the trades worth making?
To make one last point on the draft pick conversation, three first-round picks changed hands on deadline day. That's it. First-rounders were clearly at a premium. Was Cronin really going to land a pick of any real value for Brogdon?
The three deadline-day deals that included first-round picks were:
- P.J. Washington going from the Charlotte Hornets to the Dallas Mavericks for Grant Williams, Seth Curry and a top-two protected 2027 first. The Mavericks showed interest in Jerami Grant at one point - would that be an acceptable deal for a player averaging 21.9 points on 40.5 percent 3-point shooting? (Who just dropped 49 points, by the way).
- Kelly Olynyk and Ochai Agbaji from the Utah Jazz to the Toronto Raptors for Kira Lewis Jr., Otto Porter Jr. and a 2024 first. Not only was there no reported interest in Grant or Brogdon from either of those teams, but both sides of the deal would be underwhelming at best from a Portland perspective.
- Daniel Gafford to the Dallas Mavericks, Richaun Holmes and a 2024 first-round pick to the Washington Wizards. Gafford would have been a worthwhile addition for the Blazers, but as a rebuilding team, not enough of a needle-mover to throw a first-round pick at.
Are Brogdon or Grant worth any of those packages?
In addition, the Los Angeles Lakers decided Dejounte Murray wasn't worth whatever the Atlanta Hawks were asking for. The Golden State Warriors didn't make any moves. Other playoff contenders like the Cleveland Cavaliers, Orlando Magic, Minnesota Timberwolves and Sacramento Kings were quiet.
If those teams had offered enough to acquire players who would help make a postseason run, they would have. The fact that they didn't paints a clear picture of what the market was like, and it wasn't one conducive to good teams making good enough offers for deals to get done.
Better deals will likely be waiting in the offseason
A lack of any move by the Lakers specifically speaks volumes for one reason: LA had one future first-round pick available to trade at the deadline; this offseason, they'll have three. Would the Hawks have been more likely to part with Murray for two or three firsts rather than one?
And it's no coincidence that Yahoo!Sports' Jake Fischer reported after the deadline that Atlanta may be willing to move Trae Young this offseason and the Lakers are a rumored landing spot.
Like the Hawks, the Blazers could get more in return for their veterans in the offseason when teams have more picks to play with and begin to get a feel for what the free agent market brings. (The title of Fischer's piece is "NBA Trade Deadline 2024: Low-key Day Improves Odds for Summer Blockbusters.")
Brogdon, for example, will have a $22.5 million expiring contract. Grant will have four years and about $132 million left on his deal (including a player option), which seems much more palatable than five years and $160, especially as the salary cap rises.
Teams with more draft picks will be more likely to trade draft picks, and teams that strike out on free-agent targets will be more likely to trade for the type of players they didn't get. Why make a deal just to make a deal when a better one could be waiting for you in a few months?
As is often the case, this was a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario for Cronin. Portland's GM did just about nothing, which has a large chunk of the Blazers' fan base angry. But had he made a deal and gotten poor value in return, fans would be upset about that.
What if he traded Brogdon to the Knicks, for example, for Evan Fournier and a few second-round picks? Is that enough of a return to justify dealing a player of Brogdon's caliber, especially if the first-round pick Cronin sought might be waiting for him this summer?
Making a trade just to make a trade is never a wise strategy. Taking any available deal just to subtract Brogdon or Grant - both legitimately good NBA players - from the rotation is an even worse strategy. There wasn't a deal to Cronin's liking, and there's evidence to back that up based on the lack of moves made in general.
Portland's GM deserves credit for standing pat, not panicking, allowing this team to play out the final months of the season and revisiting trade possibilities in the summer when they'll likely prove more fruitful.