The NBA is in the midst of its annual \u201ctake a breath\u201d period, the dead time between late July and early September when franchises shutter, General Managers go on well-deserved vacations, and news calms down a little bit. That doesn\u2019t mean the summer is over, though. There\u2019s going to be another groundswell of opportunity soon, a possibility that is on the mind of several faithful readers of the Blazer\u2019s Edge Mailbag. Check out this oft-repeated question:<\/p>\n
Dear Dave,<\/p>\n
Well I guess we\u2019re not getting LeBron James! I keep hearing about how other free agents and teams are waiting to see where LeBron goes before making decisions. Why aren\u2019t we seeing those other decisions yet? Most importantly do you think [the Blazers] have another move waiting that we\u2019ll see soon?<\/p>\n
Val<\/p>\n
Ha! I think LeBron outwaited all of those waiting-to-see folks! No matter who remains unsigned, those trips to Greece aren\u2019t going to take themselves.<\/p>\n
But seriously, I think we\u2019ll see a trickle of signings this month, but it\u2019s not prime trade season. The Blazers are more apt to trade for new players than sign them, so I\u2019d bet Portland news will be slow for the next few weeks. Opportunities will open up again in September. Front offices will open up seriously again. Plus some players who got moved early in the summer will come available for deals. Overall things just loosen up when fall arrives.<\/p>\n
The big question is whether the Blazers are still at the market. My stance on this hasn\u2019t changed much from when we talked about it earlier in the summer. Obviously they\u2019re always open to the right move. Their roster isn\u2019t anywhere close to finished yet. But they do not give off the vibes of a franchise looking to make a major move. General Manager Joe Cronin always plays things close to the vest, but even for him this is quiet. A little nibble here, a little move around the edge there, no sign of any seismic shifts.<\/p>\n
If I\u2019m reading tea leaves, I\u2019m saying that Ja Morant was Portland\u2019s big deal for the summer. Now they\u2019re through until they see how this experiment works.<\/p>\n
Intellectually, though, I\u2019m looking at this roster and thinking they\u2019ve got to make a trade. My gut tells me that Jrue Holiday is the likeliest candidate, with Scoot Henderson coming right after. I don\u2019t doubt that Vit Krejci or other players could be involved, but Jrue and Scoot seem like the likeliest centerpieces.<\/p>\n
The sticking point is that I don\u2019t think the Blazers are in the market for major contracts longer than two years in duration. They seem to want the option for a financial-and-personnel reset in 2028. If that\u2019s true, it\u2019s going to limit the candidates coming back in. I wouldn\u2019t put it past them to turn Jrue into a couple of smaller contracts, only one of which ran beyond 2028. Draft assets are also a possibility, but I don\u2019t see a strong market for either Holiday or Henderson when it comes to draft-related swaps.<\/p>\n
At this point I think I\u2019m trusting my gut more than my eyes. If circumstances were normal, there would definitely be another trade on the horizon before February, probably before October. The circumstances are weird, but not weird enough to override that instinct for me. I\u2019m betting that yes, we\u2019re going to see another deal come down the pike.<\/p>\n
What do you say, though? Do you think they Blazers will trade anyone else this summer? Tell us your reasoning in the comments below. And if you want to send in your own Mailbag question, the address is blazersub@gmail.com. We\u2019ll try to get to as many as possible!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NBA is in the midst of its annual \u201ctake a breath\u201d period, the dead time between late…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":791826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[47228,55570,355,99],"class_list":["post-791825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-blazers-analysis","tag-blazers-mailbags","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/791826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}