The potential Kevin Durant deal is currently at the epicenter of the NBA news / rumor cycle.Brooklyn Nets Superstar Mignot ht bBack with his te eNext year. Boston Celtics currently has an inside track,Phoenix sunAnd the Golden State Warriors MentionedpotPotential destination fOr enter the Hall of Fame in the future.
Here in Portland, a reader wants to know if the Blazers may have participated in Durant’s bidding war. That is the subject of today’s Blazers Edge email bag.
Dave,
With the recent news that Durant has demanded a trade and Dame & Nurkic has been talking about posting images of Durant on his blazer uniform, I can’t help but think of Durant joining the blazer.
As it is today, it seems painfully obvious that the Blazers lack the assets to acquire Durant in a transaction. My question isn’t a naive question about how the Trail Blazers do it now, but it’s a more hypothetical question of what would happen if it were different. I can’t help but if the Blazers didn’t blow up the roster that Orcy built last year, would they now have the assets to create a Durant deal? If you didn’t trade off CJ, Norman Powell, Robert Covington, Larry Nance, Jr., etc. last year, you could build some deal to buy Durant with last year’s pre-trade deadline roster. Is not it. I would like to hear your thoughts on Netz’s interest in any of these core players. Did you know that this is a fictitious transaction?
As some additional context, I’ve long believed that Olshey would be the second / third star GM to package multiple assets and play with Dame (and perhaps CJ). ..He did it at the Clippers, but I could claim that the league helped him by invalidating the deal that would have sent the Lakers CP3 instead, so I’m gonna make it work I wanted to be naiveen agaIn Portland. The second one implied in my question above, as the approach to packaging multiple assets and another star’s draft topic seemed off the table when the Trail Blazers traded last year. The question is, do you think the Blazers are getting better with recent changes? It’s not whether the team was able to win everything, but it’s better to wait for the dissatisfied star to have the assets to acquire a Durant-type player. Was it better than doing?
Thank you for sharing your thoughts,
Corey
Let me soothe my heart. No.
If Nets dumps Durant and Kyrie Irving, they need to do one of two things:
- Acquire young star-level players to boost rebuilding.
- Get a bushel full of draft topics, reset it, and replenish it for a longer rebuild.
We are not discussing the talent levels of the Trail Blazers players you mentioned. CJ McCollum was an aggressive maestro. He pays homage to the skills and games of Norman Powell, Robert Covington and Larry Nance, Jr.
However, keep in mind that all are mid- to late veterans, closer to 30 than 23. McCallum could be said to have been a “star,” but what kind of performance gains can Nets expect from his acquisition? Together with those ex-blazers? How far has this player’s collection gone, either alone or with Damian Lillard? They didn’t fight the Blazers. They are not expected to carry the net there either.
All players mentioned are paid or will be paid at the appropriate veteran level. McCallum’s contract is more than that. Nets can’t get a lot of cap relief on that kind of deal and is certainly not enough to make a difference in the pool of talent.
This was a matter of the Orcy era roster structure you referred to. The cost of players acquired by Portland has risen over the years, but its value has declined. Their usefulness remained stable, but that was not enough.
Once upon a time, the Blazers bought Maurice Harkless and Al-Farouq Aminu at a low price. They didn’t turn the tide, but the cost was low. They served for several years, and Portland traded them for modest profits or let them go. However, you can track the cost of acquisitions, which are becoming more and more expensive over the years. Nance Jr. took the first round of picks. Powell spent money on Gary Trent Jr. These transactions have reduced Portland’s assets to use and / or negotiate. We also reduced the Blazers caproom because many of these players had to be resigned to retain.
This would have been accepted if the total number of wins had gone up, but it wasn’t. Portland eventually did the same old thing at an ever-increasing price and mortgaged more of its future assets to keep the wheels spinning.
Had the Blazers wanted to blitz them with the second standard of Nets trade, the Draft Topic package, it wouldn’t have been easy to do. Had they managed it, they would have forgotten their future picks and would have been completely vulnerable if Durant or Lillard were injured and failed to perform.
Under Orcy, the cupboard was emptying at an alarming rate. Jetisoning their former veterans was Portland’s way of getting off this carousel.
All the players involved were of no further value to the team and were at or past the pinnacle of their careers without spending a fortune. Not surprisingly, teams that want to succeed at the top level of high salaries simply keep the superstars they already have, rather than exchanging for a group of lower players in exchange for the best, so they trade superstars. I couldn’t draw 1.
The Blazers got discounts on these mid-season deals, but if they wanted to achieve them at that point, they probably had to. They may still be cruising in the summer carrying all those players, but there is no guarantee that the offer was better. Their salaries would have skyrocketed when they resigned Jusuf Nurkić and Anfernee Simons. They would have been forced to make any deal they could to reduce it. Also, they would not have the flexibility and assets to pursue Jerami Grant.
Portland expects Grant and Simons to outperform the veteran collections they trade off. And if Durant’s deal somehow remains offshore, Grant and Simons-centric packages could be more attractive to Nets than McCallum and all those mid-sized veteran-centric packages. ..
Thank you for your question, Corey! You can all send you to blazersub@gmail.com!
