Trail Blazers Stand Pat at Trade Deadline, Joe Cronin 'Excited' About Recent Improvement
For the second year in a row, Portland didn't make any major moves ahead of the deadline.
📍 PORTLAND, Ore. — It’s easier to sell an inactive trade deadline when you’re winning.
A year ago, Joe Cronin sat in front of reporters after making no significant moves and said, “We are happy with who we have and where we're at.” At the time, the Trail Blazers were 15-36, many of their most important players were either injured or underperforming, and there wasn’t really much hope to sell beyond the reality that they were going to lose a lot of games the rest of the season and set themselves up well for the draft lottery.
Things are different now. The Blazers entered the deadline the hottest team in the NBA, having won nine of 10 games (they extended that streak to six in a row and 10 of their last 11 on Thursday against Sacramento). Scoot Henderson appears to be in the midst of a legitimate breakout and Toumani Camara, Deni Avdija and Shaedon Sharpe are playing well.
Even still, Cronin is well aware that sitting at the podium for a second year in a row having not traded away any of the Blazers’ high-salary veterans wasn’t what most people were hoping for.
“I know a lot of fans and probably a few people in here prefer a little bit of action,” he said. “Quite often we do too. We're always looking for ways to participate in these windows and find guys that can help us be better. This time around, we just didn't find the value so we decided to pass.”
Not that an impressive 10-game stretch for a team projected at the beginning of the season to be one of the worst in the league should change anyone’s plans. And to Cronin’s credit, when I asked him whether this run they’re currently on factored into the decision not to do anything before noon on Thursday, he said it didn’t.
“I think our approach remained the same,” he said. “We're heavily focused on the big picture. While we're happy about the way things are going, and my job is to weigh that and whether we're putting the right dynamics around the team and I had to consider not rocking the boat. The bigger picture is more important for me. I want to build a sustained winner. The way we've played recently didn't really weigh on these decisions.”
That should be encouraging to hear. It was less than 10 years ago, in the wake of the departures of LaMarcus Aldridge, Nicolas Batum and Wesley Matthews, that an unexpected playoff run in a season the Blazers were supposed to be tanking led to a disastrous 2016 free agency period that saw them hand out massive contracts to Evan Turner and Allen Crabbe that gave them a hard ceiling for most of Damian Lillard’s prime. Neil Olshey was running the show at the time, but Cronin was a part of that front office, and saw firsthand what it looks like when you overreact to some short-term success you didn’t see coming.
The real reason the Blazers didn’t make any deals involving Jerami Grant, Anfernee Simons or any of the other veterans most feel it would have made sense to trade is simple: the deals weren’t there, and the ones that were wouldn’t have made sense.
As the trades poured in around the league leading up to the deadline buzzer at the lower levels than the superstar blockbuster deals that got done, I didn’t find myself thinking there were any that the Blazers missed out by not jumping in on.
“We value good players on good contracts who can contribute to this team long-term,” Cronin said. “It depends on if you're trying to add or subtract. If you're trying to add, is that the right value? If it fits with what we're trying to do cap-wise, talent-wise, positionally, and skill-set wise. And conversely, if you're subtracting, are you extracting enough value? Are you getting a good enough package back?”
There weren’t a lot of those kinds of packages available this week.
Milwaukee got Kyle Kuzma (linked to many of the same teams that could have pursued Grant) from Washington for Khris Middleton’s contract and the Bucks’ end of a 2028 first-round pick swap with Portland from the Lillard trade.
Memphis gave up a first-round pick to the Wizards to get off of Marcus Smart’s contract.
The Hawks and Clippers swapped bad money with Terance Mann and Bogdan Bogdanović.
If that’s what the market was for sub-All-Star-level veterans on big contracts at this deadline, I’m not going to blame Cronin for deciding to sit the week out.
It doesn’t change the reality that if this improvement from Henderson, Sharpe, Avdija and Camara continues for the rest of the season, they’re going to have to make those decisions eventually. Cronin didn’t seem to deny that was the case, either.
“I wouldn't call them concerns, but it's something we're always mindful of, is that balance,” he said. “And it's not just the number of guys and type of guys that you're trying to blend together, but it's also the roles. Who's doing what, who's getting the touches, who's getting the minutes, who's getting the starts? Those are the things we have to consider, and then weigh the pros and cons with those. What's the value of these vets? What are they bringing to this roster that's really helping our young guys? Are we hurting the vets? Are we hurting the young guys in their development? It's a constant balance that I don't think we've perfected. But our vets, I think really highly of.”
I found two things particularly notable from Cronin’s press conference.
One was the role the deadline can play in laying the groundwork for future deals.
“[Three] years ago, Jerami Grant,” Cronin said. “A lot of work at the trade deadline, couldn't get anything done. Four months later, that trade with Jerami right before the draft went really smoothly because we had done so much pre-work on that. And Deni Avdija, same thing. Heavy talks in February, a lot of talks at the draft, finally we got it going. That provides value. You know what each team is looking for. You have a bit of a foundation of what the package would look like, and then it's just sorting out all the details.”
A year ago, Cronin was heavily criticized by fans for not trading Malcolm Brogdon at the deadline for salary filler and a late first-round pick. That summer, the decision not to cut bait then paid off when Brogdon was the salary, along with two first-round picks, required to land Avdija, who’s been integral to the Blazers this season. Cronin said on Thursday that he got “fairly close on a few things” before this year’s deadline; you have to wonder if one of those is something that could be revisited in June or July. That’s worked out for him twice already.
The other big takeaway from Cronin’s press conference focused less on the next transaction cycle and more on the next two and a half months. After beating the Kings on Thursday, Portland is only two and a half games out of the 10th and final play-in spot and well out of any kind of contention for the top-four lottery odds that were a goal going into the season.
While he didn’t say that making the play-in or the postseason was the new goal, Cronin sure didn’t sound like he was going to stand in the way of it happening if the Blazers keep winning.
“I think it would be unfair to take it away from them,” he said. “For me, I'm so proud and so excited about these guys, that the sky's the limit. Go, guys, go win. See what you can do. I'm here to support it.”
Do I think the Blazers are going to win at this pace for the rest of the season? I do not. They’re going to cool off eventually, and at that point, we’ll see if the rotations, minutes and availability of certain players shifts in the same way it did in the second halves of the last three seasons.
Either way, there’s a lot more to be encouraged about now than there was a year ago.
“I hope not far,” Cronin said when I asked him how close they are to being at the point where the goal at the beginning of the season is to compete for the playoffs. “They've taken some really good steps this year. I think some of the young guys have proven to be capable of playing winning basketball, especially the second half of the year. So as we continue to build and continue to add players and get more and more capable, [hopefully] sustained winning isn't too far away.”
Interested for you to do an in depth piece on DA, his upbringing and his goals and motivations. He does seem to genuinely like Portland so would be interested to learn more about him. It would be nice to hear another perspective on him as opposed to the negative stuff we read on the internets.