MAILBAG (PART 2): Trade Deadline Plans and Fanbase Temperature on the Trail Blazers’ Rebuild

Plus, plans for Ibou Badji, and were the Gary Payton II situation and Lillard's trade request linked?

📸: Dylan Buell, Getty Images

I opened part one of this mailbag column earlier in the week by talking about the depressing-but-unsurprising news that the once-great Sports Illustrated got caught using AI to invent fake authors to churn out SEO bait. I talked about how seeing what’s happened to many legacy media outlets only made me feel validated in my decision 18 months ago to get out of that game entirely and try to do this on my own.

When I wrote that, I was just talking about my own feelings on it. I know anyone doing what I’m doing is working at a disadvantage when it comes to exposure. One of the things that can’t be replaced when you’re not working for a major outlet is the firehose to get your work out to more people. More than half the battle, I’ve found, is in making people aware that you even exist.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I woke up yesterday, opened up “X, The Platform Formerly Known As Twitter” on my phone, and saw this:

When you’re not in the newspaper or magazine game, these sorts of awards aren’t something you think about a lot. I am a member of the NSMA, and I am of course aware that they do state-by-state awards for Sportscaster and Sportswriter of the Year, but it’s never crossed my mind that it was something I might get nominated for, especially not being affiliated with a major outlet.

I’ve never been a big self-promoter (I probably should do it more) and I’m terrible at taking compliments, so it was a little uncomfortable yesterday when I started getting texts from friends and colleagues congratulating me for being nominated. But I won’t lie and say it isn’t pretty cool to be recognized in this way, alongside five other people who I can honestly say are all friends and people whose work I respect immensely.

It also tells me that people are connecting with the work that I’m doing, which is a great feeling. Those of you who have thought my work is worth giving me your money for, I can’t thank you enough.

Anyway, let’s get to why you’re actually here: part two of the latest Trail Blazers mailbag. The first part went out a few days ago. This one covers the trade deadline, Ibou Badji, Gary Payton II and more.

I know we’re still a bit of a ways out considering it’s not even December so might be a moot point, but I’m curious if you have any sense roster-wise what could potentially transpire the closer we approach the deadline? We obviously knew this team wasn’t going to win many games and I would assume even less now with all the injuries. With that being said, do you think Joe Cronin and staff will elect to stand mostly pat at the deadline to let things play out as guys get healthy or do you think they’ll be more active in that space to acquire either draft capital / young wing/forward?

- Shane L.

It's hard to say right now. This time last year, it was abundantly clear that Josh Hart would have to be moved because his skillset was redundant and he was coming up on free agency, and sure enough, he was. There's nothing nearly that clear-cut as it stands today.

Going into training camp, especially after the last-minute Jrue Holiday trade coming on the heels of the Damian Lillard trade, there was a league-wide assumption that they'd look to move some or all of Malcolm Brogdon, Jerami Grant and Robert Williams III in short order to get more picks and prospects as they began a rebuild. I'll admit that in the immediate aftermath of the trade, I thought Brogdon wouldn't be long for Portland.

I no longer think that's the case.

They'll get offers for both Brogdon and Grant at the deadline (any discussions around Williams will probably be tabled until the summer since he's out for the season), and maybe one of them will be so good they can't say no. But they're not actively looking to trade either of them, and I certainly don't think whatever matching salary a team like the Lakers can cobble together will move them.

I get the surface-level thought process that any team that's rebuilding must surely be looking to unload any player on their roster over the age of 25 for more draft picks. But having Grant and Brogdon on the roster isn't hindering their ability to lose games and improve their lottery odds as it stands now, and they like what both bring. 

Brogdon in particular has been invaluable as a source of stability in a very young backcourt, bringing a baseline level of competence that you can't count on night-to-night from Henderson as he learns the NBA. So far, he's been on board with what Billups and the organization have asked of him in a mentorship role. Maybe before the deadline that changes and he asks to be moved to a contender. Right now, he knows what the deal is and has been willing to go along with it. Brogdon has one more year left on his contract after this one at a very reasonable $22.5 million. Whatever offers there are for him at the deadline will probably still be there in the offseason if they decide to go that route.

And Grant has flat-out been the Blazers' best player this season, leading the team in scoring on good efficiency. There are some nights (like the win in Indiana on Monday) where he's their only consistent source of offense. Without him, they'd be getting blown out most nights, and they aren't interested in doing that. Just like with Brogdon, if Grant were to ask to be moved to a contender, I think they'd take care of him. But he got his money, he's getting plenty of shots and he's comfortable in Portland. I don't think he's in a rush to go anywhere and the organization loves him for off-court reasons, too.

I've said before that although the Blazers are rebuilding and going young, they aren't interested in being the Process-era Sixers or last year's Rockets. They understand the importance of having a couple of veterans to help along the kids, and right now Brogdon and Grant are doing a great job of filling that role. That's not to say they're untouchable before the deadline, but it's far from a sure thing they'll be on the block.

I'll have much more on the Blazers' plans for the trade market in a couple of weeks as Dec. 15 (the day players signed this summer are eligible to be traded) approaches, but that's my understanding of where things stand right now.

Something I’ve noticed since the first game was a lot of negativity and pessimism about Ayton and especially Scoot. It seems like there is a vocal section of the fanbase that is still upset that Dame was traded and because Scoot hasn’t been a day 1 star it means the organization made the wrong decision.

I’ll be the first to admit that Scoot hasn’t looked great for the most part but it’s been fun seeing the flashes and the energy and positivity he has. I have no idea if he ever becomes a star but as a fan of the team I hope he puts it together and am rooting for him. I don’t want to tell anyone how to fan, but I don’t get the hate being piled on a 19 year old. How many games do you want to see him play before you start making any kind of assessment about him? 

I’ve heard it said that this fanbase isn’t built for a rebuild, but at least the people I follow on social media for the most part seem excited for the young core and pretty patient. The vibes of the team also seem great and while it’s early in the season what is your take on how the players are feeling about their teammates and the future?

- Kegan S.

“How fans are feeling” depends entirely on who you follow and what you see. I don’t engage nearly as much on “X, The Platform Formerly Known As Twitter” as I used to, but I do try to monitor what people are talking about on there and other platforms. Sometimes it even gives me story ideas or puts things on my radar that I might have missed initially.

What I’ve seen has mostly been what you’ve seen: fans are, by and large, are cool with the losses for now, as long as they’re competitive and play hard every night. It will be interesting to see if that holds throughout the season and into next year, because this is definitely going to be a multi-year affair. Right now, everyone’s in a sort of honeymoon period and they’ve seen enough encouraging signs early to think it’s headed in the right direction. All of these guys are new, so there’s stuff for everyone to learn. Will people still feel that way in March when they’re 14th or 15th in the west? Who can say?

Ibou Badji - I’m endlessly fascinated by this guy. How was his performance with the Herd? What are the Blazers' plans with him? Is he a play-now replacement for RW3 or is the FO taking another flyer on his development?

- Paul O.

The plan with Badji this year is the same as it was last year—let him develop and see if he can become something. The difference is that now, the Blazers have their own G League team, so his development can include playing in actual games rather than just practicing and participating in the "stay-ready" runs with the end-of-bench guys and assistant coaches.

The Blazers cut Badji from his two-way contract in favor of Duop Reath because Reath is more ready to play in the NBA now, and he's already become their primary backup center with Robert Williams III out for the season. (At some point, Reath is going to hit the 50-game limit for two-way players and they'll have to convert him to a regular NBA contract, but that's a problem for another day.)

All along, the Blazers wanted to keep Badji on the Remix—they liked him and wanted to continue developing him—but the Bucks' G League team, the Wisconsin Herd, retained his returning-player rights since that was the last team he played for in the G League before signing his last two-way here. Remix GM Danny Connors would have had to work out a trade with the Herd for his rights.

They were able to bring Badji back when their guards started to get healthy, which changed their priorities with their two-way spots. After Henderson and Brogdon went down, they used their open roster spot to convert Skylar Mays to a standard NBA contract and backfilled his two-way spot by signing Jamaree Bouyea, because they needed another body in the backcourt. Bouyea didn't make much of an impression, and once Henderson and Brogdon returned, they didn't need that extra guard to eat minutes anymore, so they waived him and brought Badji back.

As for how much Badji will play with the Blazers this season, if at all—I'll bet he ends up in the role Moses Brown is in right now, the break-glass-in-case-of-emergency center. But the priority will be having him play real games and real minutes in the G League, with the hope that next year he'll be ready to be a full-time NBA rotation player.

People probably don’t want to talk about this anymore, but I always wondered if the way Goodwin and GPII handled his injury and subsequent trade had anything to do with the animosity that grew between the FO and Goodwin. Do you have any insight there? Did anyone ever mention this?

- Niko

I don't think the Gary Payton II mess at the deadline and the contentiousness of Lillard's trade request had much to do with each other, and I don't think the Payton situation was Aaron Goodwin's fault. You have to remember that while all of that was going on, Goodwin said, on the record, that the allegations that the Blazers were giving Payton Toradol shots were not true. Of the three main parties involved in that entire debacle (the Blazers, the Warriors and the Payton/Goodwin camp), there was one that was leaking things about the Blazers' medical staff to certain media outlets that were later shown not to be true, and it wasn't Goodwin.

If there's a way in which the two things are related, it's that the Blazers' decision to sign Payton last summer in free agency over Bruce Brown—which we can only assume was at least in part due to him and Lillard sharing an agent—was one of the things that sunk the Blazers' season and eventually led them here. If they had gotten a fully healthy and engaged version of Payton from the beginning of the season, or if they had just signed Brown instead, maybe the season turns out differently, they make the playoffs and Lillard doesn't end up requesting a trade. Signing Payton is, to date, Cronin's biggest misstep in his two years as general manager, given how it ended up playing out.