Playing buy or sell with each NBA playoff bubble team
By Alec Liebsch
Portland Trail Blazers: Sell
The Portland Trail Blazers may already be done with the trade market, having signed Carmelo Anthony and acquired Trevor Ariza to halfheartedly fill their forward holes. Overall the season has been quite disappointing in Portland, as seemingly no one can help Damian Lillard get the team to where it’s been the past few years.
In fact, no one outside of Lillard, Hassan Whiteside and *checks notes* Skal Labissiere is above league average in win shares per-48 or box plus-minus, two “catch-all” stats found on Basketball-Reference. Not even CJ McCollum made the cut. That’s bad.
There’s not much of a silver lining to this season; everyone has under-performed for a team that has recently been great at maximizing its fringe guys. The fifth season of the Lillard and McCollum Show might be the worst one yet.
Serious reconstruction is in order over the offseason, but that doesn’t seem realistic now. Minor deals, if any, will have to bridge the gap.
Though it hurts to deal off players when you have a star in his prime, the Blazers’ goose is pretty close to cooked for this season. If proper value can be extracted from anyone but Lillard, it’s in Portland’s best interest to pull the trigger.