Hoops Rumors is breaking down the 2018 offseason for all 30 NBA teams, revisiting the summer’s free agent signings, trades, draft picks, departures, and more. We’ll evaluate each team’s moves from the last several months and look ahead to what the 2018/19 season holds for all 30 franchises. Today, we’re focusing on the Portland Trail Blazers.
Signings:
Standard contracts:
- Jusuf Nurkic: Four years, $48MM. Includes unlikely incentives. Fourth-year partially guaranteed ($4MM). Re-signed using Bird rights.
- Seth Curry: One year, $2.8MM. Signed using taxpayer mid-level exception.
- Nik Stauskas: One year, minimum salary. Signed using minimum salary exception.
- Two-way contracts:
- None
- Non-guaranteed camp contracts:
- Cameron Oliver: One year, minimum salary.
- Chinanu Onuaku: One year, minimum salary.
- Gary Payton II: One year, minimum salary.
Trades:
- Acquired the draft rights to Gary Trent Jr. (No. 37 pick) from the Kings in exchange for either the Timberwolves’ or Lakers’ 2019 second-round pick (whichever is more favorable), the Heat’s 2021 second-round pick, and cash ($1.5MM).
Draft picks:
- 1-24: Anfernee Simons — Signed to rookie contract.
- 2-37: Gary Trent Jr. — Signed to three-year, $3.92MM contract. Fully guaranteed. Signed using taxpayer mid-level exception.
Departing players:
Other offseason news:
- Team owner Paul Allen being treated for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
- Reached jersey ad sponsorship deal with Performance Health (Biofreeze).
Salary cap situation:
- Remained over the cap.
- Carrying approximately $131.6MM in guaranteed salaries.
- Projected tax bill of $12.58MM.
- $1.7MM of taxpayer mid-level exception still available ($3.63MM used on Seth Curry and Gary Trent Jr.).
Check out the Portland Trail Blazers’ full roster and depth chart at RosterResource.com.
Story of the summer:
When a team gets swept by a lower seed in the first round of the playoffs, it’s logical to assume that management will do more than simply tweak the roster. The Trail Blazers entered the postseason in April as the No. 3 seed with a 49-33 record. The Pelicans, playing without DeMarcus Cousins, made their postseason stay as short as possible.
To be fair, New Orleans only lost one fewer regular-season game than Portland despite being the No. 6 seed. It also had the best player on the floor in Anthony Davis, who averaged 33 PPG in the series.
GM Neil Olshey could have done something bold in the aftermath of that flameout, specifically breaking up the high-scoring backcourt tandem of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum. Whether Olshey didn’t receive attractive offers for the guards or he simply didn’t want to push the panic button, the Blazers look pretty much the way they did when they cleared out their lockers after last season.
Beyond that duo, the Blazers didn’t have a commodity to trade to bring in another impact player. Their bloated cap situation made it even more difficult to add another piece through a trade or free agency. Their biggest offseason move was retaining starting center and restricted free agent Jusuf Nurkic.
Re-signing Nurkic actually came at a lower cost than originally projected. He reportedly turned down a more lucrative four-year offer during last season with the expectation he’d get a lucrative offer sheet. When the market tightened up during the first week of free agency, Nurkic settled for four years and $48MM with some incentives thrown in.
Locking up their young starting center who posted averages of 14.3 PPG, 9.0 RPG and 1.4 BPG last season for approximately $12MM annually was a best-case scenario for the Blazers. With Nurkic returning, Portland has all of its starters back from its playoff team.
Key offseason losses:
The Blazers’ reserve unit will have a new look after they let go of three key contributors from last season.
Shooting guard Pat Connaughton appeared in all 82 regular-season games but he only averaged 5.4 PPG in 18.1 MPG while shooting a ho-hum 35.2% from long range. Connaughton wound up signing with the Bucks after Portland didn’t extend a qualifying offer, making him an unrestricted free agent.
Big man Ed Davis was Nurkic’s primary backup last season but the Blazers, with their luxury-tax concerns, allowed him to walk. He appeared in 78 games, averaging 5.3 PPG on 58.2% shooting. As usual, Davis pounded the glass and pulled down 7.4 RPG in just 18.9 minutes per contest. He signed a one-year, $4.4MM deal with the Nets.
Guard Shabazz Napier, who backed up both Lillard and McCollum, followed Davis to Brooklyn. Napier averaged 8.7 PPG, 2.3 RPG, and 2.0 APG but, like Connaughton, didn’t receive a qualifying offer from the Blazers. The unrestricted free agent then signed a two-year deal with the Nets that included a team option.
Key offseason additions:
The Blazers essentially replaced Napier and Connaughton with the combination of Seth Curry, Nik Stauskas and Anfernee Simons.
Curry didn’t play at all last season due to a stress fracture in his lower left leg. He enjoyed a breakout season the year before with the Mavericks, averaging 12.8 PPG, 2.7 APG and 1.1 SPG in 29.0 MPG while appearing in 72 games, including 40 starts.
Stauskas played a combined 41 games for the Sixers and Nets last season. He’s a career 34.9% shooting from long range and shot over 40% from downtown for Brooklyn. If he can do that for the Blazers, he’ll earn a rotation spot.
Simons, the team’s first-round selection, didn’t play college ball. The 19-year-old shooting guard attended IMG Academy last year.
Outlook for 2018/19:
Lillard and McCollum are signed through the 2020/21 season and they’ll put up plenty of points along the way. Nurkic provides some stability in the post. That trio was potent enough to get Portland into the postseason a year ago.
What’s holding the Blazers back is several bad contracts, which prevented them from improving the cast around their core players. Evan Turner will make nearly $18MM this season, while Maurice Harkless and Meyers Leonard will each bank nearly $11MM. Portland isn’t getting enough bang for its buck with any of those players.
The only way for Portland to improve upon last season is to see substantial growth from 2017 first-rounders Zach Collins and Caleb Swanigan. That’s a far cry from getting a proven wing or power forward to balance out their guard-oriented offense.
Thus, it’s more likely that the Blazers take a step back and sit out this season’s playoffs rather than making a better postseason showing.
Salary information from Basketball Insiders was used in the creation of this post. Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. Luke Adams contributed to this post.
SethCurry & Swanigan were terrific in previous stops, so that might be something, but the team is not better given the losses, and indeed only finished 3 games ahead of the #9 team. They could be out of it this year.
Hoping they are terrible this year and deal Lillard to the Sixers.
I like the Nik Stauskas addition, he’s played really well so far this preseason. Didn’t watch much of him in Brooklyn last year but he’s definitely a huge upgrade over Connaughton. Hopefully Seth Curry can stay healthy. I still don’t think Harkless/Turner is the answer at SF but Stotts said that Turner will mostly play with the second unit surrounded by shooters, which honestly is the best use for him. That means more shared court time for Dame and CJ in the starting unit which stands to improve with one more year of Dame-CJ-Aminu-Harkless/Collins-Nurkic. This team is not going to be as bad as people think. I do still think the frontcourt is rather thin on depth if Swanigan can’t take a step forward this year.
The biggest loss is obviously Ed Davis. It sucks knowing if we didn’t trade for and waive Varejao and Andrew Nicholson we’d have the $4 million it took Brooklyn to sign Ed. Obviously taking Nicholson’s contract on allowed us to get rid of Allen Crabbe who shouldn’t even have gotten that contract in the first place, but that’s another story.