Portland Trail Blazers
Damian Lillard has been the face of the Portland Trail Blazers since 2012, but this franchise is not trending in the right direction right now. They drew a lot of scrutiny in their coaching search over the summer, they fired general manager Neil Olshey on December 3 after an investigation into allegations of the Blazers being a toxic environment created by Olshey and now, the team is just 13-19 on the floor.
Nobody on this roster has really played well this season and being terrible once again on the defensive-end of the floor, Portland is on the verge of tearing everything down.
While they do have the longest active playoff streak in the league, which currently sits at eight consecutive playoff appearances, this team really has nothing to show in terms of success over the years. In this eight-year period, the Blazers have reached the Western Conference Finals just once in 2019 and they got swept by the Golden State Warriors in a series that they stood no chance in.
The Portland Trail Blazers have no cap space, they really do not have any young, future talents other than Anfernee Simons and Nassir Little, and the organization is very limited in draft resources through the years.
LATEST NBA NEWS & TRADE RUMORS: These 4 Teams Continue To Be Linked To Ben Simmons Trade Rumors
Leveraging Jusuf Nurkic and Robert Covington, two veterans in the final years of their respective contracts is a move that we could very much see happen at the NBA trade deadline this season in an effort to gain more assets, but it is equally likely that the Portland Trail Blazers could trade away Norman Powell or CJ McCollum should the right deal come their way.
Damian Lillard is likely not going anywhere after both he and the team have stated numerous times that he is not going to be leaving Portland, but everyone else on this roster is fair game at this point.
Portland is not going to get better overnight and while they could certainly make some moves to add some of the best defensive talents in the league like Myles Turner and Ben Simmons, it is really hard to see this team turning things around this season.
LATEST NBA NEWS & TRADE RUMORS: These 4 Teams Continue To Be Linked To Ben Simmons Trade Rumors
Maybe they will sneak back into the playoff picture in the Western Conference, but the Trail Blazers are not built correctly right now and have a lot of holes to fix, starting with cementing who will be running things in their front-office.
Interim general manager is going to do everything in his power not only to improve this team, but remove the “interim” tag from his title, which is why we should expect some big moves made by Portland ahead of the NBA trade deadline.
