The Trail Blazers Aced The Damian Lillard Trade
I normally don’t go out of my way to praise the Portland Trail Blazers. They have been an irrelevant franchise for basically my entire life. That franchise is a total snooze fest 99% of the time. With that said, can we just have a quick chat about how well the Trail Blazers did offloading Damian Lillard? I love everything they did in regard to this deal.
I did two trade grade posts on what the Blazers did. One for the Dame trade. Another one when they successfully flipped Jrue Holiday for even more assets. I thought both deals were home runs. Plus, Portland is going to get even more assets when they flip Malcolm Brogdon. That deal with the Clippers for Brogdon is just staring them in the face and will likely get done at some point.
Still, Portland came away with this acquiring Deandre Ayton, Robert Williams, first-round picks in 2024 (via Golden State, protected 1-4), 2029 (Milwaukee unprotected), and 2029 (Boston unprotected). The Blazers also have pick swaps with the Bucks in 2028 and 2030. Once you add another pick when they flip Brogdon, it’s going to end up being a nice haul for the Blazers.
I talked about this from a Suns angle, but I absolutely love the buy-low on Ayton. I’m not an Ayton guy. Probably never will be but it’s also insane how low his stock is at right now. The guy was a number one overall pick and averaged 18 and 10. Portland somehow dumped one of the worst contracts in the league in Jusuf Nurkic and turned it into Ayton. That’s a huge win.
The two young bigs the Blazers got perfectly complement each other too. Timelord is a rim protector who doesn’t demand the ball and plays great defense. He’s an underrated passer and a lob threat at all times. Ayton is more of a pure scorer. The way you can mix and match those guys actually seems ideal. Both are young too and fit the Blazers timeline. No reason why both can’t further improve.
Most of all, Portland deserves so much credit for not caving on the poo poo platter Miami was offering. Tyler Herro isn’t a bad player but he also made no sense for this Blazers roster. They also had limited picks to offer too. Joe Cronin and the rest of this front office deserve a lot of credit for not cowering and doing the right thing for the franchise. The fans in Portland should be ecstatic. This is the most exciting their team has ever been. If Scoot Henderson turns into a star, this team has real promise.
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