Where Trail Blazers Stand Ahead of 2024 NBA Draft
The latest on Portland's plans in a draft where they hold four picks.
When I wrote this week-of-the-draft reset column last June, I called the leadup to the Trail Blazers’ 2023 draft “among the most important 48 hours in franchise history.”
The decision general manager Joe Cronin faced a year ago—selecting Scoot Henderson or Brandon Miller with the No. 3 overall pick or trading it for win-now help—was going to determine whether their plans over the coming half-decade would include Damian Lillard or not.
This year, the stakes are just a bit lower. The path has already been chosen following last summer’s Lillard trade and the Blazers, coming off their worst season in nearly 20 years, are firmly in rebuild mode now. In all likelihood, they’re several years away from being a playoff team again. They don’t yet know who the next face of the franchise will be—Henderson, Shaedon Sharpe, whoever they draft with the seventh pick on Wednesday, ideally Cooper Flagg a year from now, or someone else—and their record next season is going to be similar to their 21-61 showing last year.
Still, it’s an important draft for the Blazers. They have two picks in the lottery (No. 7 and No. 14) and two in the second round (No. 34 and No. 40). They have several veterans who could be trade candidates either this week or in the coming month as free agency gets underway. Even at the top, it’s not a draft viewed as franchise-changing, but there are plenty of players (many of whom the Blazers have brought in for in-person workouts over the last month) that are projected to be good rotation players.
I haven’t written too much on a lot of the predraft rumor-mill stuff that’s cropped up recently. Earlier this month, I covered how all-over-the-place the mock drafts have been. Trade and offseason targets for teams, not just Portland but across the league, are the subject of constant misinformation, both intentional and not. Most of it isn’t even worth the time to dismiss. It’s also important to note that tonight’s insane Mikal Bridges-to-the-Knicks trade came out of left field without any whisper of the talks leaking out beforehand. The deals that actually get done usually happen like that. Remember that when you read these trade rumors.
But heading into draft day, it’s worth laying out what I’ve been able to gather about the Blazers’ plans—what’s real and what’s smoke.
The No. 7 overall pick
