Would this trade make sense for the Portland Trail Blazers?
For the Portland Trail Blazers, this would be a way to reshape what the team looks like. Something clearly isn’t working, and while, like the Atlanta Hawks, this main core of players has reached the Conference Finals, that was a long time ago. Now, they are struggling to make the play-in.
The backcourt duo of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum may have run its course, and pairing Lillard with an All-Star-level frontcourt player instead could be a nice change. The duo of Lillard and John Collins would be very intriguing.
Lillard would be playing with the best lob threat he’s ever played with, an elite stretch big (42.9 percent on the season), and someone that can attack opponents in a different way than he does. Maybe that would be enough change to wield different results.
Plus, if the Lillard/Collins combination doesn’t work out, then the Blazers still have a piece they can build around moving forward. Collins is only 24 years old, so if they wanted to, Portland could still trade Lillard and other pieces to help build around Collins.
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Danilo Gallinari would be somewhat of a throw-in to help match salaries and make the deal more enticing for Atlanta, but he could provide some solid spacing, too. Simply put, it’s time for the Blazers to make a change, and this one makes sense for both right now, and when planning for the future. That’s crucial.
