Portland Trail Blazers: Analyzing early offseason moves (and a conspiracy theory to watch for)
The Portland Trail Blazers have added some interesting players since the NBA Draft.
The NBA draft is over, and the Portland Trail Blazers have made quite a few moves early in this free agency process. Let’s analyze how these moves will affect the team moving forward.
Trading for Jerami Grant
Right after the trade for Jerami Grant, plenty of online personalities talked about what a steal Portland got. A borderline All-Star level forward for the cost of a 2025 Milwaukie Bucks first round pick, a 2022 second round pick swap, and a pair of future second round picks.
What hasn’t been mentioned enough is how much Grant will help the team. Adding a forward who can impact both sides of the ball shouldn’t just help out Damian Lillard, but it will also help Jusuf Nurkic. Since he arrived in Portland, Nurkic hasn’t played next to a power forward who is an offensive threat like Grant is.
He should make it harder for teams to double down on the Portland Trail Blazers center. With Grant in the lineup, Nurk should have more chances to use his passing abilities.
Blazers fans remember how often Robert Covington missed close-range shots. Also, how Al Farouq Aminu never shot the ball well enough for opposing defenses to commit to guarding him. Jerami Grant fixes both of those past issues.
Drafting Shaedon Sharpe
Before draft night, I wrote an article giving the Blazers a five percent chance of keeping their own pick. That was before the Grant trade. Once that deal went down, it gave Portland more flexibility and patience. General Manager Joe Cronin didn’t have to be as desperate to move the pick as he originally was.
All fans need to do is watch videos of Shaedon Sharpe to see the potential. Aside from youth, he doesn’t appear to have any obvious weaknesses. Sharpee can attack the basket, has a nice mid-range game, can shoot the long ball, and seems solid on defense.
The hype surrounding him reminded me of the hype around Damian Lillard when the Blazers drafted him in 2012. The difference is Portland was criticized for picking Lillard sixth when most pundits had him going late lottery. Before Sharpe missed his entire first season of college ball, some people had him projected as the top overall pick.