3 money-saving trades for the Portland Trail Blazers

The Portland Trail Blazers need to start saving money and get rid of some of their bad contracts. Here are some salary dump trades they could still look at doing this offseason.

Back in the summer of 2016, the Portland Trail Blazers handed out $233.4 million in contracts to Evan Turner, Maurice Harkless, Meyers Leonard, Allen Crabbe and Festus Ezeli.

Ezeli never played a single minute for the team, and they let him walk after one year. Portland also traded Crabbe to the Brooklyn Nets before the start of last season so they could avoid being over the luxury tax and paying the penalty.

The Blazers still have Harkless, Turner and Leonard under contract for two more seasons at a combined $79.7 million. Turner and Harkless have been a part of the primary rotation since signing their deals, while Leonard has failed to make an impact.

The Blazers are going into the 2018-19 season $29.7 million over the salary cap and $7.9 million over the luxury tax line. They have no money to make moves and improve their roster. The Western Conference is growing and getting tougher, while the Blazers’ core roster is mostly the same as it’s been the last two seasons.

Before teams start to report back to their cities for training camp and the preseason, the Blazers need to make a trade to get off of one of their bad contracts. Portland owns all of its first round draft picks in the future and has some young talent on the roster to use in a trade if need be. Here are three money-saving trades the Blazers could look into.