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https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/31559778/offseason-moves-portland-trail-blazers-how-patient-damian-lillard-be
Bobby Marks
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For the fifth time in eight seasons, the Portland Trail Blazers are heading home after an all-too-familiar first-round exit.
Unlike last season, when their demise came at the hands of a Los Angeles Lakers team that went on to win the championship, this year's loss comes to a Denver Nuggets team missing its second-best player in Jamal Murray.
Fairly or not, the focus this offseason will be squarely on the status of coach Terry Stotts, and how Portland can try to improve the roster around All-NBA star Damian Lillard.
Terry Stotts
When a coach leads a team to the playoffs in eight consecutive seasons, he shouldn't face questions about whether his job is secure.
However, as past offseasons have repeatedly taught us, life for a head coach in the NBA is rarely fair.
Stotts has posted a regular-season winning percentage of .558 and reached the playoffs in all but his first season in Portland, with the team peaking with a conference finals appearance in 2019. However, that was one of just three times under Stotts in which the Blazers advanced beyond the first round, and his 22-39 playoff record will be at the center of the decision to bring him back or send Portland looking for a new coach for the first time since 2012.
The first-round loss this year is magnified compared to past years because Portland was facing a Denver team without Jamal Murray, Will Barton and PJ Dozier.
Unfair as it sounds, a coach with 402 wins since 2012-13 should be applauded, but the reality is that the business of the NBA is win-oriented, not just in the regular season but in the postseason as well.
The cost of loyalty
Damian Lillard has never asked out during his tenure in Portland. The All-Star has made it clear that he would like to finish his career as a Trail Blazer, and this coming season will be the first he plays under the five-year supermax extension that he signed in 2019.
As he told Marc Spears then, Lillard envisions himself in the role of Dirk Nowitzki, a player who stayed loyal to his team despite falling short in the playoffs before winning a championship in 2011.
"I respect what Dirk did," he said. "Like, I see that and I'm like, 'It'll be worth it. I know it was worth it for him,' you know what I'm saying? Like, he'll be forever, ever, ever respected in Dallas and in the league. So that's like what I see from myself."
However, watching Lillard this season (and in prior years) carry Portland to a 42-30 record and an epic performance in a double-OT loss to Denver in Game 4, makes you ask the question: Does Damian Lillard deserve better?
Are the prime years of Lillard going to be wasted running on the treadmill of mediocrity and if so, is it time for a change? That is not a question that the Trail Blazers' front office can answer, only Lillard. To be clear, we are not advocating for him to approach the front office requesting a trade. But Lillard will need to look at the roster and ask, how can it get better?
Barring a major overhaul, Portland will return much of the same roster that lost to an undermanned Denver team, at a much higher cost.
The Trail Blazers are likely to find themselves in the luxury tax if Norman Powell is brought back and could lose key reserve Carmelo Anthony to free agency. Anthony has early Bird rights and Portland would have to commit two years to the forward if he is seeking more than the minimum exception.
The player they used the full midlevel exception on last offseason, Derrick Jones Jr., fell out of the rotation after the Powell trade and played limited minutes in the first round.
Two starters, Robert Covington and Jusuf Nurkic, are in the last year of their contracts but are also extension eligible. Should Portland entertain the thought on extending both players past this season? If they don't, the Trail Blazers will be limited in their options to replace them; Portland is already projected to be at the salary-cap line for 2022-23 when accounting for the money owed to Lillard and CJ McCollum and a likely new contract for Powell.
McCollum is in the first year of a $100 million contract and represents the Trail Blazers' best trade option if they want to drastically reshape the roster. He is coming off a sixth consecutive season of averaging at least 20 points and he is under contract through 2023-24.
McCollum will not return the same type of package of multiple draft picks and swaps that James Harden or Jrue Holiday netted in prior trades, but considering the goal is to build around Lillard, the Trail Blazers would be targeting players who can help now and not ones in the future.
Maybe the loyalty that Lillard has shown the Trail Blazers will be rewarded with a championship in the future.
For now, he has another first-round loss to add to his resume and an offseason to wonder what's next.
Norman Powell
The Trail Blazers' deadline day deal to acquire Powell was a risk/reward move. The risk was that Powell had an $11.6 million player option, one he is now likely to decline and become a restricted free agent this summer. That means he could potentially sign with another team, leaving Portland nothing to show for a trade that cost it restricted free agent Gary Trent Jr.
Declining the option wouldn't necessarily signal Powell's desire to leave. It would simply be a smart business decision for a player coming off a career season.
In the 69 games split between Toronto and Portland, Powell averaged a career high in minutes (32.0), points (18.6), 3-point percentage (41.1%) and had a net rating of +3.6 in the games played with the Trail Blazers.
The reward aspect of the trade, beyond what Powell provided on the court for Portland in his two months there, is that the Blazers had an opportunity to recruit him early, and by acquiring his Bird rights, they can exceed the cap to sign him. The financial cost, however, could be substantial.
According to ProFitX, Powell this past season outplayed his $10.8 million contract by $11 million. Teams like Dallas, Miami, New York and San Antonio all have significant cap space and Powell would fit a need for each team.
If Powell leaves in free agency for another team, Portland would still be over the cap, and would have only the $9.5 million midlevel exception to replace him, leaving the Blazers with little leverage in negotiating a new deal for Powell.
Keeping this roster together is going to be expensive. Although they have $107 million in committed salary, Portland will blow through the luxury tax if it keeps the partial/non-guaranteed contract of Jusuf Nurkic ($12M) and retains Powell, Anthony and restricted free agent Zach Collins.
Team needs
Bench depth: shooting guard, stretch four and center
Prioritizing Norman Powell in free agency
Resources to build the roster
Own free agents: Zach Collins, Norman Powell and Carmelo Anthony
Expiring contracts: Jusuf Nurkic, Robert Covington and Derrick Jones Jr.
Exceptions: $9.5M midlevel and $3.7M biannual or $5.7M tax midlevel
Cash: $5.8 million to send or receive in a trade
Dates to watch
• Derrick Jones Jr. went from starter to out of the rotation after the Trail Blazers acquired Norman Powell at the deadline. Before the All-Star break, Jones had started 30 games, averaging 27 minutes, 8 points and 4.8 rebounds. In the months of April and May, Jones averaged only 13.4 minutes, coming off the bench in 15 games and averaging 3.8 points. In the first-round loss to Denver, he played a total of five minutes. Jones has until July 28 to exercise a $9.8 million player option or elect to become a free agent. Considering that it is unlikely that his next contract would start in the $10 million range, Jones will need to weigh if playing time and a more identified role outweighs financial security.
• Barring an unforeseen development, Powell will decline his $11.6 million player option by Aug. 1 and become a free agent. Powell is coming off a season in which he shot 41.1% from 3 and averaged career high in points (18.6).
• The Trail Blazers have until Aug. 1 to decide on tendering Collins a one-year, $7.0 million qualifying offer. Collins last played on Aug. 15, 2020, in the play-in win against Memphis. He missed the entire 2020-21 season recovering from left ankle surgery. In total, Collins has played 11 games in the past two seasons.
• Nurkic has $4 million of his salary guaranteed with the remaining balance protected if he is on the roster past Aug. 3. His $12 million contract for 2021-22 ranks 14th among all centers. Expect Nurkic to be on the roster past his guaranteed date.
Restrictions
• The Trail Blazers cannot trade their 2022 first-round pick until the night of the draft.
• The $4 million guaranteed portion of the Jusuf Nurkic deal counts as outgoing salary in a trade.
• Norman Powell and Derrick Jones cannot be traded until they exercise the options in their contracts.
Extension candidates
• Once the Nurkic contract is guaranteed, the Trail Blazers then would be allowed to extend him for an additional four years and up to $64.5 million. In the 25 games since the All-Star break, Nurkic averaged 12.2 points, 9.6 rebounds and was a +4.3 on the court. The Trail Blazers overall were 22-15 in the 37 games he played this season. A $14.4 million starting salary in the first year of the extension would rank outside of the top 10 of starting centers.
• Acquired in the offseason, Robert Covington is in the last year of his contract and is extension eligible. The Trail Blazers can extend him for an additional four years and $70 million in new money. Covington, 30, ranked No. 2 among all power forwards in defensive real plus-minus and had a net rating of +2.9 when he was on the court.
• Portland has until the day before the start of the regular season to extend the contract of Anfernee Simons. The 21-year- old is coming off a season in which he averaged 7.8 points and 42.6% from 3. He scored a playoff high 14 points in a Game 1 win at Denver.
The draft
The Trail Blazers do not have a pick in this year's draft. Their own first-round pick was sent to Houston as part of the Robert Covington trade and their second-rounder was traded to Cleveland (now with Memphis) to acquire Rodney Hood in 2019.
In the future, Portland has all of its own first-round picks, plus second-round picks in 2022, 2026 and 2027.
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I wanna go to where the martyrs went
the brown figures on the walls of my apart-a-ment...
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