Portland Trail Blazers are undoubtedly building towards the future. Their max player right now is Damian Lillard and the organization is building a team around him based off the promise of success in the future.
Over the summer they acquired two young big men in Mason Plumlee and Noah Vonleh on seperate trades that also saw them surrender first round draft picks to do so. For the reward of their talent the Blazers have elected to pick up the options on the young players as well as the option for young guard C.J. McCollum, who is expect to be Damian Lillard’s running mate for years to come.
Following from Erik Gunderson of the Colombian.
The Portland Trail Blazers exercised the options of three players on Wednesday morning. The team announced that they have picked up the fourth year options for guard CJ McCollum and center Mason Plumlee, as well as the 3rd year option for 2nd year forward Noah Vonleh.
These three player alongside Lillard, if they reach their potential, could be a force to be reckoned with in the NBA in a couple of years. The two interior men, Vonleh and Plumlee, can both score, rebound and play well off the pick and roll. While we know what kind of player Plumlee is, a good scorer who protects the rim pretty well, Vonleh is more of an unknown and will have to fight for minutes this season with Ed Davis and Meyers Leonard in front of him on the depth chart.
McCollum on the other hand appears to be developing into a nice ‘three and D’ guy, a good replacement for Wesley Matthews, who took his talents to the Dallas Mavericks. McCollum and Lillard in the Blazers back court, shooting the lights out is a promising prospect to think about when paired up with Plumlee and Vonleh.
The only issue is, these players need to hit their potential in order for these deals that they made to appear like they were worth it, at the time.
