Portland Trail Blazers: A CJ McCollum for Ben Simmons trade makes sense for both teams
Ben Simmons is likely out of favor in Philly. The Portland Trail Blazers make a great trade partner by sending CJ McCollum to the Sixers.
After the Philadelphia 76ers were upset in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, the Ben Simmons trade rumors immediately surfaced. Some of them hinted at the Portland Trail Blazers sending C.J. Mccollum in a deal to obtain the 24-year-old All-Star. I wanted to add some analysis as to why I think this would be the PERFECT trade for both teams. Here are three reasons why this trade works for Each Team.
How Ben Simmons helps the Portland Trail Blazers
1. Instantly Improves Portland’s defense
In one of my recent articles, I made the point that I thought most of Portlands’ starting lineup played out of position. I’ve often wondered what it would be like if CJ was drafted a year before Dame and not the other way around. CJ, in my mind, has always been a PG forced to play SG for Portland because they already had Dame.
Norman Powell, acquired in the Gary Trent trade, played small forward this season for a wing-depleted Blazers team. He fits better as a shooting guard than as a frontcourt player. Robert Covington always played his best ball as a 3-and-D small forward. He was out of position last season as an undersized power forward.
Removing CJ and shifting Powell and Roco to their more natural positions becomes an even better option for Portland when they add the defensive and ball-handling abilities of Ben Simmons at power forward. That’s three above-average defenders roaming the lanes, two of which were All-NBA Defense First Teamers (Simmons and Covington). Simmons is already doing more defensively than the Portland Trail Blazers ever even hoped Zach Collins would become.
2. Simmons will significantly help Jusuf Nurkic
If anything has been learned over the last four years of Blazers basketball, aside from Dame, this team lives and dies by the health and impact of Jusuf Nurkic. They hover around eighth seed/missing the playoffs entirely without him and have been a Top-3 seed when he’s been healthy. In addition, the Blazers improved perimeter defense would allow Nurkic to compensate defensively less often and finally be a bigger offensive threat down low.
All the grief people gave Nurkic in that first-round series against the Nuggets completely ignored the fact that Nurkic didn’t have any real defensive help while trying to stop the league MVP. Undersized at their positions, forwards Covington and Powell weren’t able to aid Nurkic as much as one would hope. At the other end of the floor, an exhausted and foul-plagued Nurkic rarely played in situations where he could get interior scoring opportunities. Portland didn’t utilize Nurkic offensively to the best of his abilities. Ben is the exact kind of forward that would help Nurkic.
From @SportsBettingAG, Ben Simmons odds on where he'll go via trade:
— Brandon Sprague (@BrandonSprague) June 21, 2021
Portland Trail Blazers +200
Washington Wizards +300
San Antonio Spurs +400
Utah Jazz
+500