Blazers ‘Definitely Want To Trade’ Jerami Grant, Anfernee Simons

The

Portland Trail Blazers

have been in rebuild mode since they traded long-time franchise star

Damian Lillard

during last summer’s

NBA

off-season, and it appears that they are prepared to part ways with more of their core going forward.

According to league insider Mark Medina,

Jerami Grant

and

Anfernee Simons

are both high on the list of players that the Trail Blazers’ want to part ways with, though they may face difficulty in doing so due to a lack of a robust market.

Rebuild in Full Flow

Traded for Deni Avdija, drafted Donovan Clingan

It has been a few years now since the Trail Blazers were rendered to be a legitimate playoff contender, and the loss of Damian Lillard only appeared to prolong their return back to the Western Conference playoff conversation, firmly signifying a rebuild era in Portland.

But, Blazers General Manager Joe Cronin has attempted to accelerate such a rebuild through some off-season moves this summer, most notably that of the acquisition of swingman,

Deni Avdija

via a trade with the

Washington Wizards

.

The deal allowed them to receive a 23-year-old two-way wing who enjoyed a breakout season last year, in exchange for veteran guard,

Malcolm Brogdon

and a handful of draft picks, which cleared some of the Blazers’ logjam at the guard position.

However, there is still more work to be done in that department, with reports surfacing that suggest that the Blazers now want to find a deal that sees them offload Anfernee Simons, who is coming off a career-high year, and despite being just 25-years-old, Portland looks to be prioritizing a future with younger guards

Shaedon Sharpe

, and No. 3 overall pick in the 2023

NBA Draft

,

Scoot Henderson

.

Simons may not be the only one headed for the exit door, with Jerami Grant also reportedly on the trade block, though the expectation remains that only one of the two will be dealt, at least before training camp.

Furthermore, having selected center

Donovan Clingan

out of UConn with the seventh overall pick in the 2024 draft, this has inadvertently suggested that

Deandre Ayton

– who regressed significantly last season – could too find himself on the trade block, with his future still remaining very uncertain.

Nonetheless, the Trail Blazers look to have positioned themselves in good stead for a potential resurgence up the standings over the next few seasons, and could yet accelerate this upward trajectory with additional moves.

Lack of Market Availability Is the Challenge

While Medina believes that the Blazers certainly want to trade both Grant and Simons, and for different reasons, with Simons falling out of favor behind Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe, and Grant being the big-money signing who is on a losing team, he feels that the organization will face a tough challenge in trying to deal them.

This is because there isn’t thought to be too much of a market for either player as it stands, and while previous reports have linked Grant to the

L.A. Lakers

, who were thought to have demonstrated interest in the forward, it doesn’t appear that they want to part ways with draft picks for players who aren’t considered ‘game changers’.

Grant, Simons Likely To Enter Season With Blazers

Due to aforementioned reasons, Medina ultimately feels that both Grant and Simons will begin the season with Portland, and only when it comes close to the trade deadline, could some movement be on the cards.

He further discusses that there are only a handful of other teams around the league who have unresolved activity, and neither of them would be interested in making a trade with the Trail Blazers.

Grass Could Be Greener on the Other Side

Grant, Simons could both benefit from a change of scenery

The Trail Blazers don’t want to part ways with either Grant or Simons because they aren’t playing up to scratch. In fact, both players are coming off strong individual campaigns, in which they have each posted career-highs across some facets of the box score.

For Simons, who has spent his entire six-season NBA career in Portland, he relished having the backcourt to himself without Lillard, and averaged a career-high 22.6 points on 43.0 percent shooting from the field, while he still knocked down 38.5 percent of his attempts from outside the perimeter.

Furthermore, he also recorded 3.6 total rebounds, and dished out 5.5 rebounds, both career-highs, with his team-high dimes creating 13.9 points per contest.

Grant, who is now considered a veteran, having got a decade of league experience behind him, continued his good scoring form, in which he notched 21.0 points, the second-most in a season across his career, shooting at a rate of 45.1 percent from the field and a career-high 40.2 percent from downtown for the second successive season, while he averaged 3.5 rebounds, and 2.8 assists to go along with his scoring numbers.

Entering just the second season of his five-year, $160 million deal, it is deemed that while the power forward contributes to winning basketball, as exemplified by his 4.1 and 2.7 win shares in his two seasons with the Oregon outfit, he doesn’t drive his teams to winning, and with somebody that comes with such a high price tag, the organization perhaps expected he’d have much more of an impact with the team.

Nevertheless, there doesn’t appear to be too much of a rush to trade either player, with the stance being that they are hopeful of bolstering their roster if they are able to engage in a deal for either player.

But, if either player were to be moved, then a new environment may not be such a bad thing to either, especially if they were to end up on a contending team – a change that would be refreshing to both, with them both having spent their careers on rebuilding teams or ones stuck in the cycle of mediocrity.

All statistics courtesy of Statmuse, ESPN, NBA.com and Basketball Reference.

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