Trade Idea Realistic trade options for summer of 2023

How about draft BPA and acquire DeRozen?

Trade Nurk, Little, #23, 2025 unprotected for DeRozen and return of pick owed
Draft Scoot
Sign Naz Reid for the tax MLE

Dame Scoot
Ant Sharpe
DeRozen Thybulle
Grant Watford
Reid Eubanks

Super deep team. Good mix of elite youth for the future and all-star vets to win now. Still can trade 3 other first round picks.

 

That team is trash, and I say that not to be insulting, but to point out that REALISTICALLY we aren’t going to be able to accomplish what we need to

That team still gets killed on the boards and has no one that plays perimeter defense in the starting lineup

 

Legit concern and I'm not sure the team would be great either. Yeah rebounding and defense are big problems.

It would be crazy deep with an elite Scoot/Sharpe backup backcourt. Sharpe gets some minutes at the 3. Grant/DeRozen minutes are staggered so normally we have the defense of Thybulle or Watford to help in the front court.

Not a lot of moves that allow the Blazers to keep all three of BPA at #3/Sharpe/Ant plus add an allstar. This is a rare move that could. The final contending move would likely need to be done at the deadline with the 3 future picks the Blazers have. Or if the trade doesn't work at all just trade all of Dame/Grant/DeRozen for a massive haul and rebuild around #3/Sharpe/Ant.

Yeah a ton of fans would be mad because the team continues to split the difference of trying to win now or rebuild. But if the Blazers can't make moves to contend now, and aren't ready to trade Dame that might be the best coarse at this time then evaluate in a few months of the season.

 

You still want to start Dame and Ant together?!? What in the actual fuck is that about? We would have so much of the franchises value tied up in guards it would again make no sense at all. Ant is valuable except when he has to play with Dame. Dame is the most valuable thing this franchise has. The only thing this franchise has that rivals Dame's value is the third pick or maybe Shaedon... you want all of that tied up in our back court. Then you want DeRozan who is another perimeter player... along with Grant who is more of a perimeter player and you want Grant backed up by Trendon who showed us last season that he cannot give us productive minutes when trying to win. Then finally we get a budget starting C in Reid backed up by an end of the bench guy in Drew.

This is a farce. Not my post, but your idea for our off season.

 

Another idea I like, gets Bridges but lets us retain Ant. If Scoot is the player at #3 not sure the Nets would be that rigid on having Ant in the deal.

Nets get - Nurkic, Little, 2023 #3, 2025 & 2027 Blazer picks unprotected
Blazers get - Bridges, Claxton, 2024 pick back from Chicago
Bulls get - #23 #43

Blazers sign Naz Reid for MLE

Dame Mays
Ant Sharpe
Bridges Thybulle
Grant Winslow
Claxton Reid Eubanks

 

You bring up valid concerns and I can't discount all of them. However we are seeing teams with offensive talent and teams that are deep succeeding in both the regular season and playoffs like never before in NBA history. Perhaps the game is just evolving in those regards. Perhaps not.

I just don't like the idea of trading Ant as I feel like he still will improve a lot so we're selling low on him. The problems with Dame is we might be months away from trading him as well; if this franchise was acquiring Giannis or Embiid yeah I'm sending Ant out with no concern as its a legit 3-4+ years of contending with Dame right now. But do we think Cronin will make the key veteran trades needed? Even if he acquires a great vet - how certain are we that move works out in the next year or two?

Also I just don't think the DameCJ or DameAnt duo is as bad as many others around here believe. Its more that the other 3 starter as well as all the players on the bench need to be productive which hasn't ever been the case in the Olshey/Cronin outside of two years. Those two years saw us as a darkhorse contender with LMA or a WCF team with DameCJ. Yeah some fans just see it differently than that. Ant is also nearly a decade younger, just a totally different dynamic today and tomorrow than the DameCJ duo.

 

Better, but I’m not sure that’s realistic

 

I think if the third pick is Scoot then it should be worth Bridges and Claxton without any of the extra shit you're throwing in there. They should have to take Nurk, Little and you don't have this in there but for salary matching purposes Knox and Johnson. So pick 3, Jusuf, Nas, Kevin and Keon for Bridges and Claxton. That's a fair fucking deal.

Both Bridges and Claxton have all star potential but both guys have been in the league for five and four years respectively without making the all-star team or sniffing an all nba team. This isn't like trying to get Jaylen Brown and a starting level C with the third pick. The show Bridges put on at the end of last season was just a step up from what Shaedon did, yeah Mikal is a better defender and lost less games during his showcase but he's also like seven years older. Bridges and Claxton are proven commodities and what they've proven is that they are valuable role players with maybe some upside left. I'm cool with giving up the third pick for that but anything more than the third pick from us (besides matching contracts) and anything less than Bridges and Claxton from them is a deal breaker for me.

Oh and for some fucking reason you still have Ant starting next to Dame?!?!?!

 

I think Portland contorting themselves in any trade scenario just so they can keep Ant is dumb

that's not to say toss him away for nothing. But his salary and his role on the team are obstacles in just about any roster upgrade I can imagine

 

KJ Martin for #23?

 

I really want to keep that pick for a center.
James Nnaji really intrigues me although he is probably a year away from having an impact.

 

Would rather sign Bruce Brown in FA.

 

would love to trade for him, but his value realistically isn’t worth a first round pick. 2 seconds maybe.

 

It depends what the result of the trade scenarios are. Do the Blazers have a contending roster after the trade? Then yes go ahead and trade Ant. I just find that unlikely. Ant is the 2nd or 3rd best young piece on this team depending on how the #3 pick develops. Its dumb to trade that away if we have a realistic chance of needing to tear down this team in 6-12 months and move on from winning now with Lillard. I'd say the chance of needing to rebuild are much higher than the chance of contending. I'm fine with going the contending route and trading Ant - but I'm not fine excited with bringing in overrated veterans as Olshey/Cronin have done with Roco/Nance/Grant.

Blazer fans are also traumatized by the defensive shortcomings of the DameCJ and DameAnt duos. It's flipped the other direction where many are underrating players offense. Yes those duo's have real problems and the team needs players that are better defensively. But there's 8 rotational players each game - DameAnt can be the top 2 offensively and the team can succeed if the other 6 players are good defensively. The problem with getting rid of Ant is if we don't replace his offensive creation then its really going to limit Dame productivity, increase the traps he faces, increase his exhaustion as he turns 33, and reduce opportunities in the playoffs where the top 2 players get taken away as what happened to Miami/Phoenix/etc. So the Blazers either need to bring in a #2 scorer who is a good defender (very rare player) or surround DameAnt roster with frontcourt players that can defend at a very high level.

 

that's just a phony standard in my view. It basically makes Ant untouchable because there's no single trade with Ant as the centerpiece that is going to elevate Portland into contention. It could very well be the trade after that does that; or the trade after that one; or hitting a home run on a draft pick

it would have to be a process, and the trade of Ant could be an integral part of a process that ends up with Portland contending; and that wouldn't get to that point if the outcome of a Simons trade wasn't part of the equation

Blazer fans are not traumatized about Dame/CJ. But they did spend 7 years hearing the same tired bullshit about the power of Dame/CJ you're trying to peddle about Dame/Ant. There's no market for that, at least not among people who paid attention to the 7 years Dame/CJ reboots that failed the same way every time

last off-season, I was all for giving the Dame/Ant duo a chance. My reasoning was that Simons is a different player than CJ and we couldn't really know what kind of mesh and synergy the two would develop. Well, I saw the mesh, the synergy...and no thanks; been there/done that; for the 8th time now. Ant isn't CJ; he's actually worse on defense. Out of the 24 players who suited up for Portland last season, Ant was 24th in defensive rating. Portland was a bad at defense last season yet somehow, Ant was 4 points worse than the team. And Ant was 22nd in DBPM, ahead of only Knox and Chance Comanche...yeah, that Chance Comanche...who I wouldn't mind being on the team just for the opportunity of saying Chance Comanche lots of times

but more than that, what is so special about Ant's offense? Out of the 149 qualified players Ant ranked 71st in 3ptFG%; 108th out of 190 in TS%. He ranked 108th out of 190 in PER as well, with a mark of 14.8 when the NBA average is 15.0. He ranked 182nd out of 245 in FT rate; he was 189th out of 190 in rebound rate; 70th out of 190 in assist rate. He ranked 164th out of 190 in winshares/48 at .054 when the NBA average .100.

as mentioned, he was tied for 187th out of 190 in DBPM. That was part of him being tied for 140th out of 190 with a -1.1 BPM. And your suggestion he was an offensive dynamo isn't backed up by him being tied for 63rd in OBPM with noted offensive juggernauts Emmanuel Quickley and Mason Plumlee and behind CJ, Dinwiddie, DDR, Christian Wood, D'Angelo Russell, Malcolm Brogdon, & Buddy Hield. None of those guys are indispensable because of their offense...why is Ant?

Ant is terrible at defense, and at best, he's overall average at offense. I get that he's still relatively young with some potential upside. But he is a 24 year old 5-year veteran with nearly 300 games of experience. The horizon of his upside is pretty visible.

What I see is an undersized SG with relatively poor PG skills. He's not 3&D because he's negative D. He doesn't have the size or length to switch onto typical NBA wings, and even if he did, there's that D issue. So he has poor versatility. He's a terrible rebounder who doesn't get to the FT line, and getting to the FT line is an integral part of individual NBA offense

making the requirement of a Simons trade that the trade has to make Portland a contender or no dice, makes no sense at all to me

 

Any takers? I’d do it. Wright would be a nice backup while Shaedon takes over the starting 2 position. Honestly I really just want to get rid of Nurk.

 

Yeah, I think KP is a better fit in the system. If we did that I would really hope that we could draft Miller or if it's Scoot trade 3 for Franz Wagner and 6 if that were available.

 

System?

 

What about this?

NO gets our #3.



Dame/Mayes
Sharpe/Thybulle/Reddish
Zion/OG/Thybulle
Grant/Walker/Knox
Valenciunas/Eubanks


Contender? Not realistic?

If at all possible, I think this makes us true contenders.

 

This the same KP that Dame score 60 against by putting him in P&Rs every possession? Chauncey doesn't want his big to drop. KP would struggle mightily in that "system"