Plausible destinations for our vets?

salaries of mentioned C's:

Ayton - 34M (2 years)
Claxton - 27.6M (4 years - decreasing salaries)
Vucevic - 20M (2 years)
Poeltl - 19.5M (3 years all at 19.5M)
Timelord - 12.4M (2 years)
Valanciunas - 9.9M (3 years)

 

Excellent. If somebody wants to offload some salaries and a pick for Ayton we could make that work.

I'd take a pick for Timelord as well.

 

This is basically crap and an unprotected 1st for Jerami Grant. It gets Grant's contract off our books. And that 1st could be used, or packaged to move up in the 2025 draft.

The Kings are under performing, but have a lot invested in their middle aged roster, so they'd be in win now mode.

 

the Kings have a losing record; they were in the lottery last year. I'd seriously doubt they'd give up an unprotected pick in this 2025 draft for a player like Grant. Too much risk, even though it's small, of it being a top-4 pick. They might do a top-4 protected pick but they'd quite possibly demand top-10 or so; maybe split the difference and land at top-7. That would be a decent trade for Portland, IMO

it would be great if the Blazers could find a taker for Heuter. He's been a fairly solid 3 point threat in his career. But 17M is pretty steep and 18M next season is steeper; and he hasn't been solid from the arc last season or this

by the way, this trade would bump the Blazers just above the tax line. They are 3.7M below so the trade would put them 200K over the line. And they'd have to waive a player, almost certainly Reath. Both are fairly minor issues though but for sure the Blazers would need a follow-up trade to dump some salary

I didn't even check that; good catch

I'd think that makes it even more unlikely the Kings risk an unprotected pick. Fox will be UFA in 2026; the Kings only have 5 players under contract that season; and Derozan will be 37. They might be a pretty deep lottery team

 

Starting to worry that we won't be able to unload any of our vets because it's a glutted market. Suddenly there's a slew of teams looking to offload practically their entire roster. Bulls, Pelicans, possibly the Kings. Meanwhile the teams that are succeeding are doing it with a patient build-slowly approach (Orlando, Boston, OKC in particular) and as their core is young they're unlikely to do a classic Brooklyn Nets gamble-on-a-bunch-of-aging-stars approach.

Be prepared to have possibly all three of Ant, Ayton and Jerami still on the roster after the trade deadline. I can see RWIII and (if he ever gets health) Matisse being moved, but I'm pretty pessimistic about the others.

 

POR needs two FRP in this draft.

 

I doubt it. Our five vets (also including Matisse plus rwill) could compose a starting lineup in it of itself. I don’t see a lot of competition for the trade market with our overall available players.

 

The Heuter and Lyles make about 25 mil per year, so it would be a cap savings for Portland, even this year. They probably would protect it, but I think their lineup would be too solid for them to get a top pick anyway. I think they're in the Damian Lillard era Blazer territory, of being too good to suck but not good enough to really complete. So I think they'd be in the same mode we were in, of trying to get talented vets.

 

you're right!!...I went the wrong direction in my remedial math-head...sorry

 

The Rockets are in a interesting position. They’re looking to be in more of a win now mode than a rebuild mode. If we did take on Dillon Brooks I wonder if we could get Jabari Smith Jr and what would the price be?

 

They would be so good if they drafted Clingan.

 

I'm not sure I would want to take (and pay) Jabari when we have Deni and Toumani. Not a bad reclamation project, but I'm not seeing him have the impact that either of those two bring.

They are due for a consolidation trade. Neither Smith or Green should figure to be in their plans for long.

 

Sengun has been pretty damn good for them. He's averaging 19 & 11 with 5 assists. Per36 it's 22-13-6. I seriously doubt they had any interest in drafting a backup C at #3 when they already had Adams in that role

 

This thread mentions Hueter and Lyles are on the block. I'd suspect they are trying to land a player like Grant. If they didn't want to give up a pick, I'd take Devin Carter instead.

 

Indeed. But they'd have the best defense in the league with Cling Kong

 

they already rank 2nd but I guess they could move up to 1st. Shepard hasn't done much yet. Clingan has certainly been better

 

I will alter this proposal a bit and ask your opinion.

‘26 has to move to ‘27 because they owe ‘25. How about we make that top 4 protected instead. We also get Devin Carter, and toss in Banton.

So overall trade is

Carter, Heurter, Lyles, ‘27 top 4 protected pick

for

Grant, Banton

How do you feel about this?

 

you sure seem to have a thing for Carter

I've never seen him play but statistically he sure looks like another 6'2-6'3 SG with poor PG skills. Been there/done that

I'd rather keep Banton; Kings keep Carter and do a simpler 1-for-2 trade with the pick coming back