NBA Trade Deadline: 15 best NBA players who could be available

6. CJ McCollum — Portland Trail Blazers

Who knows what the Portland Trail Blazers are going to do this season. They are coming off back-to-back first-round exits after their run to the Western Conference Finals. Now, they are likely going to miss the playoffs entirely this season. Damian Lillard is out for a few more weeks after abominable surgery. It’s basically the white flag for the Blazers season. Now that they made it clear this isn’t the year the Blazers are going to make a run, it makes a lot of sense to move on from at least one of their guards. They have Lillard, Norman Powell, Anfernee Simons, and CJ McCollum.

McCollum is someone who’s been in trade rumors before, but it was always for a piece that made the Blazers contenders despite the deal. McCollum is still a very good player. He’s averaged north of 20 points for seven seasons in a row (including this season). Any team would love to have him on the team. He’s dealt with some injuries, but he’s only 30 years old. He’s not exactly ancient.

He just signed a three-year extension, so the Blazers have to find a match for a $33 million salary. That’s complicated in of itself. On top of that, they have to find someone willing to take a risk on McCollum keeping up his production for the next two seasons after this one.

Still, McCollum is still a very good player in this league. He’s been a perfect sidekick to Lillard for all these years, so it will be weird to see him in another uniform. The Blazers need assets as they want to push while Lillard is still with them and they already wasted this year. If they can get massive assets to try and reshuffle the team in the offseason, it makes a lot of sense.