After a successful 2015-16 season saw them push through to the second round of the Western Conference playoffs, the Portland Trail Blazers decided to bring back most of their same team for this season, with one notable addition. The Trail Blazers picked up Evan Turner in free agency, signing him to a monstrous four-year, $70-million contract that was almost immediately panned by critics and fans, before re-signing their own free agents Meyers Leonard and Allen Crabbe.
The young Blazers, who had a ton of cap flexibility to build around rising stars Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum, mostly locked in their team for the coming future last summer and will be completely capped out for years. Sitting below .500 at the trade deadline was not in Portland’s plans; they were supposed to take a step forward and contend among the West’s elite.
Portland has already made one trade, which broke on last Sunday morning: they traded upcoming restricted free agent Mason Plumlee and a second-round pick to Denver in exchange for Jusuf Nurkic and the Grizzlies’ first-round pick in 2017. Nurkic still has one more year after this one on his rookie contract, which means the Trail Blazers get to evaluate him for more than a full season before having to make a decision on re-signing him to a larger contract. Additionally, that extra first-round pick means they’ll have three firsts in the upcoming draft, which can either be used in a separate trade for a star or to move up in the draft in June. Either way, getting out of having to pay Plumlee is a win for the Trail Blazers.
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The Trail Blazers’ cap situation is bad and getting worse; they’re already over the cap this season and the massive contract extension still hasn’t kicked in for McCollum, who’s already signed his four-year, $106-million rookie extension. Trading Plumlee for Nurkic gives them a bit more flexibility, since they’ll have Nurkic under contract for cheap next season, but they’ll still be well into the luxury tax as things stand. The acquisition of Nurkic makes it more unlikely that they’ll pick up Festus Ezeli’s non-guaranteed $7.7 million for next season, though they’d have no way to replace him if they did so. If owner Paul Allen is willing to stomach the massive luxury tax bill, that gives Neil Olshey and his team more flexibility in their decision making, but no matter which way you slice it, this team won’t be very active in free agency for the next few years.
Because the Trail Blazers are capped out, the best avenue to improve their personnel is through trades; they can either use some of the future draft picks they own to incentivize a team to take one of their albatross contracts off their books or can try to convince a team to trade a similarly-paid player for one of theirs. Portland does have all of their own first round picks in addition to Cleveland’s unprotected first round pick in this upcoming draft, giving them lots of ammo to use in a potential trade.
Portland isn’t one player away from making a deep playoff run, but their largest problem remains from last season; they desperately need a center who can protect the rim defensively. Ezeli was supposed to be that guy, but he hasn’t been able to get healthy and has yet to play this season. Ezeli hasn’t played a full season since his rookie year and it seems unlikely that Portland will be able to rely on him to be their center of the future. Theoretically, Nurkic will fill that gap for Portland, but he’s been inconsistent in both performance and attitude since his rookie year. Ezeli is rumored to be on the trade block before the Feb. 23 deadline, but the only trade partners Portland may find will be teams who want to reach the salary floor for this season.
There aren’t many rim-protecting centers on the market, but Olshey is probably making calls every day to Bryan Colangelo and the Philadelphia 76ers in an attempt to pry the unhappy Nerlens Noel out of his hands. Noel, another young center who will command a new contract this offseason, would be a welcome addition to the Portland defense that’s consistently been in the bottom five in defensive rating this season. Given that Philadelphia is under the cap, they theoretically could take one of the Blazers’ bad contracts in exchange for Noel, with at least two first round picks going Philadelphia’s way. Getting Noel at the trade deadline would be the only way for Portland to pick him up; they wouldn’t have the cap space to sign him this summer unless they held his Bird Rights.
Whether or not they trade for Noel or another center to upgrade their team this year, the Trail Blazers should be actively trying to shed salary from their long-term cap sheet in order to maintain any level of flexibility in the future. Turner, Leonard, and Crabbe all have varying values at the deadline, ranging from virtually none (Crabbe) to very little (Turner and Leonard). Crabbe cannot be traded anywhere he doesn’t want to go; he has an effective no-trade clause for one year after his offer sheet from the Brooklyn Nets was matched by Portland last summer.
Turner’s contract torpedoes his trade value; nobody wants the remaining three years of his contract. Turner had started to turn his year around for the Trail Blazers before suffering a broken bone in his hand in last week’s game against Dallas, further hurting his value. Leonard is theoretically everything you would want out of a backup center, but his horrid defense has kept him mostly stapled to the bench this season. Leonard’s contract isn’t as terrible as his defense; at about $10 million per year, he’s about properly paid for a backup center, but his play this season hasn’t lived up to that contract.
There’s been some noise that the Trail Blazers might break up the Lillard-McCollum partnership, but because McCollum has already signed his extension, his salary in a trade is the average of this year and the next four. That means that he would count for $21.9 million in a trade rather than the $3.2 million he actually makes this year, which makes it even harder for another team to match salary.
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Portland’s not in a great place long-term. They’ve filled out a roster that doesn’t look to be much better than a low-end playoff contender and they’re going to be paying through the nose for that privilege until at least 2019-20 if they’re not able to get another team to take their bad contracts. Getting a first-round pick and a cost-controlled young big for Plumlee was a good start, but there’s more work to be done in Portland.