Portland Trail Blazers: 4 reasons to trade 1st-round pick

3. To get more draft picks

With only one selection in this years draft, Portland might look to trade back or out of the draft to acquire more picks. They traded this year’s second-round pick along with a future second-rounder to get back into last year’s draft to add Gary Trent Jr. at pick No. 37.

Here is an example of the type of trade they could make on draft night: Trading their No. 25 pick to the San Antonio Spurs for pick No. 29 and pick No. 49.

This would give Olshey and the Blazers two cracks at finding some solid talent in the draft. In the past, Olshey has been successful at finding impactful guys in the second round, selecting players like Will Barton, Jake Layman, Pat Connaughton and Allen Crabbe.

Another option for the Blazers is to trade out of the draft entirely. When they are on the clock at No. 25, there might not be any players they are very high on and think is worth a first-round selection.

If that is the case, they could look to trade their pick for a future first-round pick
to a team trying to get back into the draft.

Adding another draft pick to their arsenal gives Portland more assets to work with when they are looking to make trades the rest of the summer or next season.

Two years ago Portland went into the 2017 draft with three first-round selections and ended up trading two of the picks to move up into the top 10 to add Zach Collins.