NBA trade deadline: Will the Blazers increase playoff ceiling

The NBA trade deadline is Feb. 5 and the Portland Trail Blazers have both big and small decisions to make.

PORTLAND, Ore. — The Portland Trail Blazers are approaching a stretch where decisions, both big and small, are starting to pile up.

With the NBA trade deadline looming next Thursday, the Blazers still find themselves in the playoff picture. Despite a rash of injuries, they opened 2026 with a 9–2 run before dropping three straight games to Toronto, Boston, and Washington. Those losses have left Portland two games under .500, but still holding the ninth seed and a spot in the play-in picture heading into the final week before the deadline.

Even if the Blazers choose to stand pat on the trade front, roster decisions are coming quickly.

Caleb Love has blossomed in recent weeks, evolving from a high-volume, low-efficiency chucker into a legitimate scoring threat. Over his last 10 games, Love is averaging nearly 15 points per night. The problem is timing. Love is on a two-way contract, which limits him to 50 active NBA games before the team must either convert him to a standard deal or send him back to the G League for the rest of the season.

The Blazers are nearing a similar decision with Sidy Cissoko, who is also running out of two-way eligibility. Both players are seeing real minutes, and both have contributed meaningfully, making it hard to imagine Portland letting either slip away.

Assuming the Blazers want to keep both on the active roster, they do have options.

The cleanest path would be a trade. Moving out a player could allow Portland to bring back an expiring contract and negotiate a buyout. However, if the Blazers truly see themselves as buyers pursuing a playoff spot, the roster status of the 14th- and 15th-ranked players should not be driving deadline negotiations.

That leads to the more uncomfortable option: cutting someone else.

For better or worse, Portland has choices here, too. Love and Cissoko, particularly Love, have been producing. Others have not. Matisse Thybulle has appeared in just four games this season and hasn’t played since October. At 28, with no clear path to minutes, a buyout and waiver would make sense for both sides.

Then there’s Kris Murray. A first-round pick in 2023, Murray has never developed into the floor-stretching forward the Blazers hoped for when they selected him 23rd overall out of Iowa. Giving up on a former first-rounder is never easy, especially one who has shown flashes, but at some point, a player is what he is. In a perfect world, Murray might fill a back-end roster role. Right now, Portland needs players who can help them win games, and Murray doesn’t appear to fit that timeline.

While the Blazers juggle the back of their roster, there’s a much bigger question hovering over the franchise: how much longer do they want to keep dancing with the Milwaukee Bucks?

The two franchises became linked in 2023 when Portland traded Damian Lillard to Milwaukee. The remaining assets from that deal include Milwaukee’s unprotected 2029 first-round pick, along with swap rights in 2028 and 2030. Portland made that deal believing the Bucks would be deep in contention for years, pushing any real pain into the late 2020s.

That future may be arriving sooner than expected, with questions swirling around Giannis Antetokounmpo and Milwaukee’s long-term direction.

The odds of Antetokounmpo landing in Portland are slim to none, for obvious reasons. Still, the Blazers are likely to be involved in any major Bucks deal, either as a third team or as a facilitator. Those picks and swaps matter to Milwaukee, and they could be leveraged to help Portland acquire something it badly needs: outside shooting.

Before making that move, though, the Blazers must carefully assess both their own trajectory and Milwaukee’s. If Portland makes the playoffs before 2028, it owes the Chicago Bulls a first-round pick, which could make those Milwaukee assets even more valuable as tools to add young talent.

If, however, Milwaukee looks poised to reload quickly and re-enter contention in the Eastern Conference by the late 2020s, it may make more sense for Portland to cash in those assets now and use them to open its own competitive window over the next few seasons.

Whether the Blazers go big, go small, or land somewhere in between, the next week could shape not just this season but also the franchise’s direction for years to come.

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