The Portland Trail Blazers quickly realized when their season was ended at the hands of the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round of the NBA Playoffs, changes had to be made. One way or another, their roster wouldn’t be the same next season.
Although their main target was retaining the services of LaMarcus Aldridge, they had a plan going into the summer that one of their starters would definitely not be around going into next season.
Forward Nicolas Batum was on the trading block since the end of May in an attempt by the team to acquire a first round draft pick.
Following from Neil Olshey on Zach Lowe’s ‘Lowe Post’ podcast.
We actively traded Nic Batum before the draft. We felt like, in a vacuum, that was the best decision for the franchise, with or without LaMarcus’ decision, without any clarity there.
That deal was done absent of anything with LaMarcus (Aldridge) other than the fact he was aware of the deal prior to us making the decision to move forward with Noah (Vonleh), Gerald (Henderson) and move Nicolas (Batum).
We started shopping Nic Batum in late May. We were trying to get into the draft. We were trying to get into the top of the draft. We figured out, look, we can’t into the draft, we figured the next best thing was to get a guy from the previous draft that we feel might be undervalued along with somebody else that can help us and we did. Those conversations happened long in advance.
If the idea was to trade Batum no matter what, the initial plan worked. The idea that it would help them going forward to keep LaMarcus Aldridge, well, that backfired. They ended up dealing Batum to the Charlotte Hornets and got younger by securing a prospect in Noah Vonleh and a solid starting guard in Gerald Henderson but they weren’t able to get that draft pick.
The Blazers are just a strange team at this point. They’re stuck in the middle between a tanking franchise and a team who is trying to look like they are attempting to make a playoff push. In the difficult Western Conference, their recent trend up, may now be going the opposite way.
