Does this trade make sense for the Portland Trail Blazers?

Out of the three teams involved in this deal, the Portland Trail Blazers are the ones who really need to take a step back and rebuild. Maybe they could get away with “re-tooling” like the Indiana Pacers would like to do, but Portland just simply lacks overall talent compared to the rest of the league right now. 

Defensively, their team is a mess and while CJ McCollum and Damian Lillard have been one of the best backcourt duos the last several years, it is time for a change. 

Portland’s bench is a mess, they really do not have much cap space and their draft capital is minimal given past trades they have made. 

In this three-team deal, the Trail Blazers would not only be adding back draft picks, replacing those that they have traded away in the past, but they would be opening up a lot of financial “wiggle room” in the offseason by getting out of McCollum’s contract. 

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Tomas Satoransky is nothing more than a “salary-filler” in this trade, opening up $10M at the end of the year and between the contracts of Valanciunas and Hart, the Trail Blazers would be saving roughly $18M through the 2023-24 season. 

By acquiring Jonas Valanciunas and Josh Hart, the Trail Blazers could also look to get more future value by leveraging Robert Covington and Jusuf Nurkic in trade talks right now. Already adding a 2022 second-round pick and a 2024/2025 first-round pick, the Trail Blazers could possibly add 3-4 more draft picks in trades involving their current veterans. 

The Portland Trail Blazers need to make a big trade to set themselves up for future success and this trade does just that in three different areas. They add draft picks, they add some more depth and most importantly, they free up some cap space and would be able to move under the luxury tax threshold on the season, assuming they were to make another trade involving Covington or Nurkic after this one.