NBA Free Agency 2018: 5 offseason targets for the Portland Trail Blazers

After attaining the third seed in the West and getting swept by New Orleans, what moves can the Portland Trail Blazers make to improve the roster?

Last season was bittersweet for the Portland Trail Blazers.  The year began in much the same fashion as the 2016-2017 season. The Blazers struggled from the outset and had the look of a team poised to barely break even in terms of wins and losses. The team seemed to lack a concrete identity early in the year and struggled to perform consistently, especially on offense. Throughout the entire Damian Lillard era, the Blazers have generally had dynamic offenses and bad to average defenses. Last year that trend inverted. Portland finished eighth in defensive rating and fifteenth in offensive rating in 2018.

The offense was entirely out of sync until January, when Dame began to catch fire. Aminu and Harkless consistently knocking down shots from deep also helped juice the offense. Portland rampaged the league for the better part of three months, emerging from the mire in the middle of the Western Conference and grabbing the third seed. Yet despite awesome seasons from the Lillard-McCollum duo and substantial improvements during the second half of the year, the Trail Blazers performed poorly in a bunch of significant offensive categories. They finished  dead last in assist rate, shooting percentage at the rim and fast break points.

Those worrisome indicators seem like the harbingers of Portland’s playoff demise in retrospect. Against the new-look, small ball Pelicans the Blazers had no answers on offense. They couldn’t create easy looks, struggling mightily to put the ball in the basket as New Orleans ran them off the floor. Portland finished that series with an offensive rating 107.1. That would have been a bottom ten level during the regular season.

The sweep at the hands of the Pelicans was a bitter end to a promising year for the Blazers; a resounding loss always incites serious self-reflection. The creative burden on Dame and CJ proved too much to handle against the energized Pelicans. Wing depth and a lack of shooting, particularly at the at the four spot, plagued Portland all year. And though the bench was better than many of its past iterations, it wasn’t exactly consistent throughout the season.

Although the holes on this roster are fairly conspicuous, the Blazers are strapped for cash.  Portland narrowly dodged the luxury tax bullet last season as the payroll fell a few hundred dollars below the tax line! But the Blazers are now in danger of paying hefty tax bills in both 2019 and 2020. Jusuf Nurkic, Shabazz Napier and Pat Connaughton are entering restricted free agency and Ed Davis will be unrestricted. Bringing some combination of those guys back will vault Portland into tax territory for the foreseeable future. Even with Paul Allen (the league’s wealthiest owner) at the helm, the Blazers might be reluctant to pay the tax for a team that didn’t advance out of round one.

With the ugly contracts of Evan Turner and Meyers Leonard impacting the books, Portland is a surefire candidate to make some cost cutting moves. Any potential deals that shed those salaries will be costly in terms of future assets though. But without some breathing room under the tax, improving this roster would be essentially impossible. Perhaps the only palatable option for the Blazers is to dump one of the Turner-Leonard deals and retain as many rotation guys as possible. Even if Portland can shed one of those deals, it probably won’t be able to add much beyond talent in free agency.

The Blazers might dish out some offers at the taxpayer mid-level exception, but that would balloon the tax bill unless one big salary is dumped. In any case, it’s going to be a tough summer for the Portland front office to navigate. Here are a few realistic options for the Blazers to pursue as the offseason unfolds.