The Portland Trail Blazers' immediate focus once the regular season mercifully comes to a close on Sunday will be the NBA draft. Locked into the league's sixth-highest lottery odds, Portland is guaranteed a top-10 pick and could net a second lottery selection if the New Orleans Pelicans are ousted from the play-in tournament.
But with Damian Lillard fully committed to Rip City, expecting to return from injury as dominant as ever at 32 years old, the Blazers must seek roster upgrades beyond the draft that will vault them up the Western Conference hierarchy next season.
Don't expect those additions to come in free agency, either. The vast majority of Portland's ample room below the salary cap will be accounted for by re-signing Anfernee Simons and Jusuf Nurkic and picking up the team option on Josh Hart's contract. The trading block is where the Blazers could make their biggest splash this summer, and multiple have already indicated they're clubhouse leaders for one of basketball's most likely trade subjects.
Here are three early trade candidates for Portland as it sets to embark on one of the most consequential offseason in team history.
Blazers early trade targets for 2022 NBA offseason
Among the league's worst-kept secrets is the Blazers and Detroit Pistons poised to re-engage in trade discussions for Grant before the draft on June 23rd. Portland would reportedly be willing to offer Detroit its second lottery pick in exchange for Grant should New Orleans miss the playoffs, and already had a package of Josh Hart and unknown draft compensation rebuffed by the Pistons in February.
Grant isn't a star, and deadline chatter about a looming desire to be his next team's first or second offensive option complicates his prospective fit with the Blazers. He's more of a threatening long-range shooter than an imminently dangerous one, too.
But at 6'8” with a 7'3” wingspan, Grant is a valuable two-way wing regardless, the type of player who could thrive playing off advantage situations created by Lillard and Anfernee Simons while filling multiple key roles on the other side of the ball. Portland badly needs a player of that archetype in the fold to emerge as a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
Grant's presence wouldn't catapult the Blazers to meaningful contention, but go a long way toward addressing the roster's longstanding weakness on the wing—not to mention placate Lillard, a teammate of Grant's with USA Basketball at the Tokyo Olympics.
Another long-rumored trade target for Portland, the assumption had been that Turner was re-entrenched with the Indiana Pacers after they moved Damontas Sabonis at the deadline instead. Turner is a free agent after next season, though, and Indiana could be wary of affording him a contract extension before then given the nagging left foot issues that caused him to miss the last three months of 2021-22.
If the Pacers decide to trade Turner before assessing his on-court fit with Tyrese Haliburton, it's incumbent on the Blazers to come calling. An elite shot-blocker who shot an elite 66.2% on twos this season before getting injured, Turner adds more exclusive value by stretching the floor to the arc on the other end. He shot just 33.3% from deep in 2021-22, a career-low likely to improve, and defenses generally respect him as a three-point shooter anyway.
All indications still point to Portland re-signing Nurkic. But if Turner becomes available, the Blazers could aggressively pivot another team-building direction while adding some additional dynamism on offense and defense that should make like easier for their star guards. Still just 26, Turner could help Portland level up during the end of Lillard's prime and serve as a long-term running mate for Simons, too.
Let's reiterate: It would be close to shocking if anyone other than Nurkic opened as the Blazers' starting center next season. But there are only so many true impact players who could change teams this summer, and the Utah Jazz seem increasingly keen on blowing it up if they fail to make the Western Conference Finals this season.
If that comes to pass, why wouldn't Portland make calls on the best rim-protector of his generation? Ignore all the handwringing about Gobert's inability to punish smaller defenders on the block and Utah's struggles containing the ball on the perimeter defensively.
The latter issue has much less to do with Gobert than his incumbent team's sorely underwhelming defensive personnel otherwise; he's even become one of basketball's best switch defenders over the last couple years. Concerns about the limits of his offensive game would be mitigated in Portland by the pressure he puts on defenses as a ball-screen lob threat, too. Lillard has never played with a high-flying dive man like Gobert.
Bringing in Gobert may not be popular in Rip City. Still, there may not be a player in the league likelier to become available than Gobert who could up the Blazers' chances of making some serious noise in the West next season like the three-time Defensive Player of the Year.
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