From now until the start of the season, Corban Ford will be releasing offseason reviews for all 30 teams. These pieces will lay out the key losses and additions, along with an analysis describing some of the significant moves and whether they positioned the team better for success or closer to disaster. This edition will focus on the Portland Trail Blazers.

The Blazers are in full rebuild mode, entering their second season without franchise Icon Damian Lillard. As they continue to lean into youth, is Portland carefully charting the path to blaze their next move or simply spinning their wheels in place?

Key Losses

Malcolm Brogdon (traded to Washington) 

Key Additions

Deni Avdija (traded from Washington) Donovan Clingan (drafted #7th) 

The Blazers didn’t do a ton between free agency and the draft, electing to head into the new season squarely in the middle of a rebuild with four members of their projected core aged 24 or younger: newcomer Avdija, (23) Scoot Henderson, (20) Shaedon Sharpe, (21) and the recently drafted big man, 20-year-old Donovan Clingan. Both Avdija and Cligan will bring a defensive ability that Portland will appreciate, especially after having finished among the bottom 10 in defensive rating last season. Clingan is a monstrous 7-2 big who averaged the 8th most blocks in the NCAA, at 2.5 per game. He shows the possibility of being the future back-end rim deterrent that the Blazers covet, especially with the generally inconsistent play on both ends of the floor from incumbent center Deandre Ayton.

The trade of Avdija for Brogdon makes sense when you consider that Deni is the right age and archetype of player (defensive wing with intriguing ball skills) to fit alongside what the Blazers are hoping to form, even if Portland was surely hoping for a more significant return for the veteran Brogdon. Ultimately, the big “addition” for this Blazers squad is the expected development from their younger players, many of whom will have the chance to showcase those improved aspects of their game over the course of the season.

Looking Ahead

For all of the positive incremental moves that were made by Portland, it is the ones that weren’t that will stand out the most, namely the lack of trades involving Jerami Grant and Anfernee Simons. Grant is an 18-20 point scorer who has had his highest-scoring years with Portland and, when engaged, is a solid defender. However, he will be 31 in March (an odd fit for a team that is several years away from contention). He’s on a contract with an annual value of $32 million (good luck with matching that salary in trades!), and his rebounding is…well, to put it charitably…pitiful. I’m sorry, but 2.9 rebounds as a 6-7 wing is a level of production rivaled by anyone who works a job and is five minutes away from punching out for the day. Real work is getting done there; we all know this.

Anfernee Simons is a productive guard who is coming off of a season-high average in points per game, and he is just 25, capable of swinging both backcourt positions and bringing solid shooting/scoring to the table. However, Simons is deemed expendable because of his contract ($25.8 million this year with another season left afterward) and the fact that he is the oldest of the Blazers guards stuck in their logjam. Both players have value that could work well with other squads across the association, but they also come with salaries that could make such a move difficult. Over the course of the 2024-2025 season, it will be interesting to see how Portland proceeds. 

The Blazers are in a stage of the rebuilding cycle where evaluation is central in determining their next steps. Whether offloading Grant and Simons’s contracts, gauging league interest in Ayton and the injury-riddled Robert Williams III, or figuring out the right combination of teammates to unlock Scoot Henderson’s potential fully, there’s no shortage of things to be done. The good news is that, for the moment, the Portland front office has nothing but time.