Portland Trail Blazers: Neil Olshey must make a move ahead of trade deadline
Making a deal ahead of Thursday’s trade deadline would be a key to helping the Portland Trail Blazers move toward championship contention in the near future.
The Portland Trail Blazers are returning from an 0-3 road trip against three playoff-caliber Eastern Conference teams. The team lost big to the Toronto Raptors, 130-105, on Feb. 2. That was followed up with a buzzer-beating defeat to the Boston Celtics on Feb. 4. Things wrapped up the next night with Portland falling flat against the Detroit Pistons, 111-91.
That road stretch emphasized the ceiling that the Blazers are up against. The team embarked on the trip after going 7-1 over their prior eight games. However, the Minnesota Timberwolves were the only team in that cluster — which included two games against the Dallas Mavericks — that was a home-court advantage playoff team.
Based off of NBA Math’s FATS Calculator, these Blazers project to be a 47-win team this season. That will certainly be an improvement from recent years; it would be the most wins in a season since going 51-31 in 2014-15. However, is isn’t anywhere near the championship-contender status this franchise aspires to reach.
Frankly, we now see that this current Blazers roster isn’t good enough to take the team to the next level. If the franchise wants to take that next step on the contention ladder, general manager Neil Olshey has to make a substantial transaction ahead of the Feb. 8 trade deadline.
The Portland Trail Blazers are still reeling from the summers of 2015 and 2016. In 2015, the team lost four of its five starters — three via free agency and one via trade. The following summer, Olshey attempted to fill the gap by signing many of the team’s free agents to big contracts.
One of those big contracts was C.J. McCollum‘s rookie extension, which was important to get done. However, many of the other contracts haven’t panned out. Festus Ezeli and Evan Turner are the two most notable names. Ezeli sat out the entire 2016-17 season due to injury and didn’t return this year. Meanwhile, Turner has been a consistent presence in the lineup. However, he hasn’t produced enough in the eyes of Blazer fans to justify the money spent on him.
Big money also went to Allen Crabbe (in the name of matching a Brooklyn Nets offer sheet), Maurice Harkless and Meyers Leonard. The team eventually traded Crabbe to Brooklyn in July 2017. They made the move to alleviate some of the salary pressure accrued from the 2016 signings. Harkless and Leonard remain on the roster, but find themselves outside of the game-to-game rotation.
This trade deadline would be the perfect opportunity for Olshey to begin turning the page on those mistakes. Last February’s trade for Jusuf Nurkic was a step in the right direction. However, it’s time to think bigger.
The Blazers have come up in discussions for Los Angeles Clippers center DeAndre Jordan. The New York Times‘ Marc Stein tweeted out the possibility two weeks ago. ESPN‘s Brian Windhorst even predicted on a recent podcast that Jordan will be in Rip City if he doesn’t remain in L.A. That would be a huge get for Portland, filling a need for an aggressive veteran inside scorer and rim protector.
But that isn’t the only move the team has to make. Any move that brings in a reliable veteran that can take some of the pressure off of Damian Lillard and McCollum will help the Blazers’ fortunes immensely.
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Olshey and the Portland Trail Blazers only have so much time to build a contender. Lillard and McCollum are entering their athletic primes and are only under contract through 2021. Making a trade of some sort by Thursday’s deadline should work toward steering the team in a positive direction. Honestly, almost any deal would be better than not making a move at all.