Portland Trail Blazers: Chicago Bulls have a lock on Blazers future
Ed Stein
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The Portland Trail Blazers owe Chicago a lottery-protected 1st round pick. Until the pick changes hands, Portland can’t trade another 1st.
Due to a trade made by former General Manager Neil Olshey, the Portland Trail Blazers owe Chicago a lottery-protected first round pick. Until this deal is concluded, the Blazers can’t trade any of their future first round picks until 2029.
It’s a sticky situation for current GM Joe Cronin. Due to NBA rules which say teams can’t trade first round picks in back-to-back years, the Portland Trail Blazers are stuck in limbo since they don’t know when Chicago will exercise their option.
This is the trade that brought Larry Nance Jr. to Rip City. In the deal, Chicago got a lottery-protected 2022 first round pick.
Portland was in the 2022 lottery, so it carried over to 2023. And the Trail Blazers were again a lottery team. This pick can slide all the way to 2028 if Portland stays in the lottery.
In a way, Chicago holds the Blazers hostage. But Portland has a few outs, as Cronin said in his post-deadline press conference back in February.
“Chicago and I talk pretty much during every transaction window where it’s ‘Hey, if it becomes necessary, would you be open to this,’ we lay a real light foundation to where ‘I’ll call you if things heat up,’”
“It’s negotiable, it’s whatever we work out, whether we change the protections to a certain year and deliver it or whether we incentivize it somehow just to get the full pick back. It could be a player, it could be all kinds of variations.”
That’s probably why he acquired a 2023 first round pick from New York in the Josh Hart trade. Probably because Chicago hasn’t agreed to take the pick yet.
The Bulls don’t have a first round pick in the 2023 Draft. It’s easy to say they should just take the 23rd overall pick, but they might decide to play a longer game.
Even with a top-three pick, the Portland Trail Blazers aren’t much of a title contender. At best, they are a six-seed in the Western Conference. That probably puts their first round pick around 18.
18 is better than 23, but this year’s draft class is much deeper than the projected 2024 class. Maybe the Blazers make the play-in, advance, and lose their first series. That puts their pick around 15.
Any lesser performance and Portland is back in the lottery. Then from 2025-28, it’s wash, rinse, repeat.
Here’s why they haven’t cashed in. The Portland Trail Blazers are hamstrung in the trade market without the ability to trade a future first round pick.
The more desperate Portland gets, the more the Bulls can get from them. It’s a good plan, provided Chicago can wait it out year after year. One thing that plays in the Bulls favor is that Damian Lillard wants to win now, so they will be motivated to conclude this trade with a kicker.
Unless the Portland Trail Blazers decide to blow the whole thing up, the ball is laterally in Chicago’s court.