Portland Trail Blazers explain recent trades, plans for future

CJ McCollum, Norman Powell and Robert Covington are among the five established Portland Trail Blazers who are now playing NBA home games in a different city. In return, the Blazers added Eric Bledsoe, a guard in his 12th season, and the most recognizable player added to the roster. The Blazers will be his fifth team, after he was landed in a trade this week with the Los Angeles Clippers.

The Blazers have accomplished the easy part: blowing up the roster.

Now they face the hard part: building something better.

“Tearing it down is a whole lot easier than building it,” said interim general manager Joe Cronin at a press conference Thursday. “So now our challenge is building it up.”

At dizzying speed, Portland shipped out major players in the franchise through three trades — one with the Clippers, the other with the New Orleans Pelicans — and another smaller one with the Utah Jazz. The Blazers traded away McCollum, Covington, Powell, as well as Larry Nance, Jr., and Tony Snell, and waived Cody Zeller. In addition to Bledsoe, the Blazers acquired a host of guards including Josh Hart, Elijah Hughes, Didi Louzada and Keon Johnson, as well as Joe Ingles and Justise Winslow who are listed as forward-guards.

The team also ended up with multiple draft picks and millions of dollars in financial flexibility. This could allow the team to sign free agents, or conduct lopsided trades in which incoming players earn more than players going out. The Blazers can also avoid paying the league luxury tax, a penalty for exceeding the leagues salary cap. This means they won’t be saddled with NBA limits on player signings that come with the tax penalty.

Cronin said he did attempt to trade for higher-profile players who could make the team better right away. But it didn’t work out.

“We tried the last few days ... we were really active pursuing higher end talent, nothing panned out this time,” Cronin said. “But we just have to be a little patient.”

Trail Blazers fans, meantime, have been fretting on social media about the apparent lack of return on the trades, particularly in return for fan favorite CJ McCollum. Again, Cronin emphasizes patience for a process that could take several seasons.

Reporters asked Cronin if the team’s plan was still to build around All-Star point guard Damian Lillard, who hasn’t played for several weeks as he recovers from abdominal surgery, or whether he is considering a plan in which the team would also part ways with Lillard.

Cronin answered that his plan is, “getting as talented as possible.” However, Cronin emphasized that both he and head coach Chauncey Billups have been in frequent contact with Lillard and “he’s fully caught up with what our plans are and were, and is very integral to discussions.”

Cronin said he was also in touch with longtime Blazer CJ McCollum before he was traded, and said the star guard agreed his new home in New Orleans was a good fit for him.

As for the new players — and their youth — Billups sounds excited for the opportunity to provide mentoring and support as they find their way in a challenging NBA.

“I can just remember being a young player in the league and really not feeling the love — just kind of being left on that island a little bit to figure it out,” said Billups, who spent 17 years as an NBA player before retiring and going into coaching. “So one of the things I said when I became a coach is I’m just, I’m never gonna let those young guys feel that way.”

Cronin already sees reasons to be optimistic about the current squad, even if he acknowledges it’s unbalanced with so many players at the guard positions. Both he and Billups spoke in positive terms of the previous night’s home victory over the rival Los Angeles Lakers. Billups raved about one of the new young players, Justise Winslow, and his eagerness to guard future Hall of Famer, LeBron James, up and down the Moda Center court.

“We feel like we’re in a good position to build a roster that fits the way Chauncey wants to play, to create an identity here where we’re defending and playing together really similar to the team that we saw last night,” Cronin said.

The NBA trade deadline has now passed and there are two months left in the regular season. With the Blazers unlikely to reach the playoffs, team officials say they’re focused on being “aggressive” in making more changes this spring and summer — whether that’s attracting free agents to Rip City, adding rookies through the NBA Draft, or by executing another round of head-spinning trades.