Stock down: Jerami Grant
Jerami Grant is nursing a hamstring injury that's kept him out of four straight games and seven of Portland's last nine. Would that same issue cause him to miss this much time if the team were pushing for a postseason spot? Maybe, maybe not. The true extent of these types of muscle injuries are hard to decipher for tanking teams like the Blazers.
Regardless, it would be nice to have the 29-year-old available.
The simplest reason is that Grant has been one of the Trail Blazers' best players this year. He's the only regular Portland starter to have crossed the 50-games-played threshold, is one of only two Blazers to score more than 20 ppg and has proven his uptick in 3-point shooting last season wasn't a fluke as he's shooting a career-high 40.2 percent from deep.
With Simons, Ayton and Scoot finally all healthy, it would be intriguing (and important) to see what 4/5 of a starting Portland lineup would look like.
Trail Blazers General Manager Joe Cronin has said on multiple occasions that Grant is in Portland to stay. But the five-year, $160 million deal he signed last offseason is still albatross-like, especially for a franchise that is in rebuild mode but somehow also perilously close to paying the luxury tax.
Letting Grant put up some big numbers at the end of the year would at worst keep his trade value steady. Having him glued to the bench is letting what value he had dip further.