NBA Free Agency Grades: Portland Trail Blazers
Signings: Damian Lillard (2 years, $122 million extension); Anfernee Simons (4 years, $100 million); Jusuf Nurkic (4 years, $70 million); Gary Payton II (3 years, $26.15 million); Drew Eubanks (1 year, $1.97 million)
Trades: Gabriele Procida (36th pick), first-round pick, two second-round picks to Detroit Pistons for Jerami Grant, Ismael Kamagate (46th pick)
Last season the Portland Trail Blazers found themselves in a one-year bottoming out, with Damian Lillard missing most of the season and other injury absences cascading through the roster. Rather than trade Lillard and fully tear down, they instead pivoted to retool around Lillard and try to make a run again this year.
The construction of the Blazers over the past half-decade of competing with Damian Lillard has been somewhat similar: two small guards, questionable forwards and a decently competent center. Portland tried to attack their weakness at the forward spots by trading for Jerami Grant, easily the best forward Lillard has played with since LaMarcus Aldridge, and signing Gary Payton II away from the Golden State Warriors.
Both are talented defenders who will pair with Josh Hart and Nassir Little to give the Blazers a suddenly deep forward rotation. Payton is a bargain at less than $9 million per season, while the cost to add Grant for Portland was incredibly low since they could add him directly into a trade exception left over from the CJ McCollum deal and save the Detroit Pistons a lot of salary.
Unfortunately, they doubled down at the outside edges of their rotation. Jusuf Nurkic was handed a contract above market value that may have been agreed to earlier in the season when they shut him down for a minor injury; $17.5 million per year isn’t the end of the world, but they are locking into Nurkic again for the next few years.
Finally, they re-signed Anfernee Simons to a four-year, $100 million contract on the back of his strong play running the show for Lillard last season. Portland became the first team with one of these young “combo scoring guards” to agree to a contract; Collin Sexton, Jordan Poole and Tyler Herro are all eligible to agree to a contract or extension, and Portland set the market fairly high at the start. Is Simons worth $25 million? Perhaps, but the Blazers will likely find themselves either closing without Simons for defensive purposes, or be similarly capped as a contender trying to win at the highest level with two small guards.
Overall, the Blazers slightly overpaid to lock in a pair of in-house players who somewhat limit their ceiling and lock them into the challenges of the past, but a pair of really strong moves to add forwards could balance things out and were both excellent values.
Grade: B