Exclusive 2022-23 Portland Trail Blazers Roster

The team really is straddling two paths right now.... and it's creating some weird issues on the roster.

 

I think they are going to try this for next season and if the results aren’t good they’re gonna split them up. Maybe at the deadline even.

 

Yeah they’re gonna try this for a season or a half season. IDK, at least it’s somewhat different.

 

Exactly. The team wants to keep Dame, give him an opportunity to win, but not mortgage the future while also giving Billups the defensive roster he wants. I think the Blazers are trying to be opportunistic here, but I suspect that this is not a finished roster. It will look differently after some trades to balance it happen, just not sure if this will still happen before the next year or closer to the trade deadline.

 

I'm curious if Dame gets his extension. I've slowly been inching towards the trade Dame camp, and Grant's age makes him able to fit both timelines.

 

I was thinking about this a little last night.

I wonder if part of the reason the Grant trade is being delayed is Portland has an agreement with Detroit to 'eat' Bledsoe's contract.... Portland wanted the opportunity to see if they could find a trade, but if not - Portland sends him to Detroit (along with cash) and they take the cap hit.

But if not - Bledsoe's contract would likely be stretched, meaning his cap hit would only be $1.3M instead of $3.9M (opening up ~$2.5M under the hard cap).

 

Does Detroit even have the ability to do that anymore? I’m pretty sure even if you guarantee Bledsoe for 3.9 and trade him, there Pistons still need 19M in cap to take him in. But I guess order of operations matter here. If they execute the Grant trade before they sign Bagley I believe they still have enough room to take Bledsoe.

 

Again I didn’t expect us to fix Neil’s problems in 1 year. We’ll have pretty good idea what we have in Sharpe, Little and Simons after this year. If two guys make huge strides we aren’t that far away, if we two of the three don’t make the jump then I think it’s full rebuild time

 

Not the biggest fan of Kevin O Connor, but he's actually been pretty spot on about the Blazers the last few seasons....

 

he also thought Nance would be a game-changing addition…

 

I'm excited about the coming year. I'm not a 'championship or bust' kind of fan. I want to see some good, entertaining basketball.

Dame, Simons, Grant, and Nurk is a solid starting group.

Who's our starting small forward? A few guys have a good argument to claim the spot:
- Josh Hart: 5 yrs, 6'5", career 9.9 ppg, 5.7 rpg, 4.3 apg, 37.3% 3pfg, Drtg 111
- Justice Winslow: 7 yrs, 6'6", career 8.4 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 2.5 apg, 31.5% 3pfg, Drtg 107
- Nassir Little: 3 yrs, 6'5", career 5.8 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 0.7 apg, 31.7% 3pfg, Drtg 117

Who's first off the bench?

Will the young guys contribute? I want to see what Shaedon Sharpe can do. Will he be a bench warmer, or actually see some floor time this year? Will Nas stay healthy and make that big leap?

Who's going to be the biggest surprise?

 

Bledsoe's full amount would match up with Grant's salary, so it works for Detroit regardless of order of operations.

 

what is the benefit for us here? we add 3.9 mil to our space below the apron? unless we have a deal lined up to bring in an upgrade using our TPE, i'm not sure of the point.

 

Precisely that.

 

Sorry to be slow responding to this. Actual work sometimes gets in the way.

As I understand it, the Blazers are capped at not being able to exceed the apron for the rest of the season. They can still make trades, including consolidation trades, as long as they remain below the apron at the end of the deal. I still think that they will pull one off.

 

Sure, financially, but the problem is the empty spots that a consolidation trade would create. You can't go over the apron to sign more players. Not even vet minimum players. So if we send out a bunch of guys to match salary, we might not be able to fill those spots and we HAVE to have a minimum of 13 guys on the roster.

 

True, so the consolidation trade would have to return lower total salaries than sent out. That complicates things a bit, but doesn't make it impossible to do a trade.

 

Not impossible. Just very difficult.