Portland Trail Blazers' Josh Hart trade ages worse by the day

In 2023, the Portland Trail Blazers traded Josh Hart to the New York Knicks right before the NBA trade deadline. Roughly a year and a half later, the Blazers have nothing to show from the deal. Here is what Portland and general manager Joe Cronin received for Hart:

Blazers have no valuable assets from Josh Hart trade

At the time, Hart was on an expiring contract and was likely to go elsewhere in free agency at the end of the season. It makes sense that the Blazers traded him rather than letting him walk and getting nothing out of it. The problem, though, is that Portland essentially did get nothing out of it.

The two main assets that the Blazers received were Cam Reddish and the 2023 first-round pick, which turned into Kris Murray at No. 23 overall. They took a flier on Reddish, who was only 23 years old at the time and a former No. 10 overall pick out of Duke in the 2019 NBA Draft.

Cronin's gamble on Reddish backfired. He only played 20 games with the Blazers, averaging 11.0 points, 2.9 rebounds, and 1.9 assists on 44/32/83 shooting splits. To put it into perspective, Reddish had such an undesirable market in free agency that he signed with the Los Angeles Lakers for the veteran minimum following his brief stint in Portland.

Meanwhile, Murray hasn't been much better for the Blazers, either. He was supposed to be an immediate impact prospect as an upperclassman out of Iowa entering the draft. Instead, Murray struggled with his shot his rookie season to the point where he was virtually unplayable. He did average 21.7 minutes per game, but that was in large part due to the Blazers' plethora of injuries and trying to secure a better draft position.

Murray didn't take advantage of the opportunity the Blazers gave to prove his value. He averaged 6.1 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 1.3 assists per game on inefficient 40/27/66 shooting splits. With the addition of Deni Avdija, a healthy Shaedon Sharpe, and the emergence of Toumani Camara, there are no minutes to waste on Murray until he proves that he is close to a league-average shooter, which may never come.

This trade wasn't quite as bad at the time, as a first-round pick is a valuable asset for a player on an expiring deal. But now that we know the pick is Murray, it becomes much less intriguing.