Winners and Losers from Pelicans-Blazers CJ McCollum Trade
And just like that, the Portland Trail Blazers' backcourt pairing of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum is no more.
In a move that signals an undeniable intent to restructure, the Blazers are sending McCollum, Larry Nance Jr. and Tony Snell to the New Orleans Pelicans for Josh Hart, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Tomas Satoranksy, Didi Louzada, a 2022 first-round pick and two second-rounders, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski. The first-rounder New Orleans is shipping out will only convey if it lands between Nos. 5 and 14, before it "kicks to the future for Portland."
The ramifications and implications of this deal are enormous for both sides. They're also far-flung.
Bleacher Report's Jake Fischer reported earlier Tuesday that McCollum could wind up being the most marquee player who gets dealt before the trade deadline. Did we just see the biggest set of fireworks go off more than 48 hours before Thursday's 3 p.m. EST cutoff?
As is ritual, we'll now parse every relevant ripple effect of this blockbuster with a rousing round of winners and losers.
Winner: Pelicans (and Their Offense)
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Surrendering a future first-round pick, however safeguarded it is against disaster, carries negative connotations for a non-contender like the Pelicans. But in this case, it shouldn't.
CJ McCollum is expensive. His contract spans another two years and $69.1 million after this season. So what? That's super short-term, and the Pelicans have more than enough wiggle room under next year's projected luxury tax ($147 million) to accommodate the difference in guaranteed salary without nuking their flexibility to make other moves.
Concerns about the defensive impact are fair. The Pelicans are around league average in points allowed per possession over their past 30 games but still struggle to get stops in the half-court. Somewhat ironically, only Portland fields a less efficient defense in these situations on the season, and New Orleans has been but a hair better (22nd) over its prolonged stretch of normality.
The Pelicans have done a better job scrapping in the half-court since Jan. 1. They're 18th in points allowed per play, and according to Inpredictable, they rank fourth in points allowed per possession during this stretch after missing a shot at the other end. That's mildly comforting. But Josh Hart is integral to how New Orleans defends. McCollum will not help control the glass, force turnovers or limit opponent transition opportunities. Herb Jones is going to be tired.
Big whoop. The Pelicans defense has outperformed the offense for the season (26th overall), and getting Larry Nance Jr. as part of this deal both diversifies their lineup packages in the frontcourt and shores up aspects of the defense.
McCollum fills a more pressing void in the backcourt. New Orleans' guards are 28th in combined three-point percentage and are dead last (by a comically gigantic margin) in effective field-goal percentage on pull-up jumpers. McCollum may operate inside the arc too often at times, but he's a proven jump-shooter and has significantly upped his three-point-attempt rate over the past two seasons. The Pelicans will likewise welcome the 36.7 percent clip he's notching on off-the-dribble threes since 2020-21.
Opportunity cost matters in these deals.
The Pelicans are currently 10th in the Western Conference and haven't provided a timetable for Zion Williamson's return from a right foot injury. But they didn't offload a singularly great asset to nab McCollum, and more than anything, this move isn't just about now. McCollum's contract runs through his age-31 and age-32 seasons. He shouldn't suffer a stark drop-off in utility, and the his offensive armory profiles as a relatively seamless fit alongside Zion.
And look: The armchair general manager in us all cannot have it both ways. We can't troll the Pelicans for Zion's potential unhappiness and then crucify them for coughing up a modest collection of assets for two helpful players. Landing McCollum may not jibe with where they finish this season, but it's nowhere near a panic move.
Loser: The Optics in Portland
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General rule of thumb: Always assume front-office executives have a better hold than you do on the trade market for their own players and assets. And yet, even with this in mind, the Blazers don't come off looking so hot.
Viewed in tandem with the Norman Powell deal, Portland's latest activity is not quite aimless, but it's definitely uninspiring. Pivoting into a rebuild or retool or reinvention or whatever the hell organizations spin teardowns as these days is fine. Smart, even. There is value in committing to a direction.
But dating back to the 2020 offseason, the Blazers have now effectively turned CJ McCollum, Gary Trent Jr. and three first-round picks into Josh Hart, Keon Johnson, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Didi Louzada, Justise Winslow, Eric Bledsoe, Tomas Satoransky, a first-round pick, three second-round picks, a big-ass trade exception and, potentially, more than $50 million in cap space this summer.
Ehhhh.
The Blazers will surely continue futzing and fiddling through Thursday's 3 p.m. ET deadline, so the whole picture isn't yet in view. Flexibility has its own value.
To what end, though? If the Blazers are lucky, they might turn their cap space and trade exception into...players just as good as CJ McCollum, Larry Nance Jr. and Norman Powell?
Spare me the Anfernee Simons element of Portland's activity. The Blazers absolutely couldn't pay so many dudes 6'4" and under, and interim general manager Joe Cronin can only work with the hand he's been dealt, but that doesn't excuse fire-selling your way to a medium return. (Portland also didn't need to blow it up to keep this year's lottery-protected pick.)
At the very least, the Blazers didn't need to make both of these deals. Either one saved them enough money on their own to duck this season's tax, and the financial outlook beyond 2021-22 could've been better addressed over the summer.
In the end, maybe this will all be necessary or even a stroke of genius. Right now, it's underwhelming.
Low-Key Winner: Damian Lillard
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Damian Lillard is a loser at first glance. He went from headlining a team that, while unimpressive, was still stocked with win-now talent to watching from the sidelines, at age 31, as the Blazers begin anew.
However!
Portland is obviously speaking with Dame through every stage of its demolition. It's reasonable to assume that he's on board with the franchise finally angling for more than middle-rung finishes over the long term—particularly if the plan is to offer him the two-year max extension he wants over the offseason.
On the flip side, if Dame isn't in lockstep with the organization, the Blazers just paved him a freshly guilt-free path toward the exit.
He always could've demanded a trade at any point without facing too much backlash. There would invariably be "Is this what not running from the grind looks like?" jokes fired off at his expense, but hardly anyone would have genuinely faulted him for seeking a better situation had Portland stood pat or hit more singles and doubles rather than triples and homers on the trade market.
Now? Forget about it. The Blazers have licensed Dame to do whatever he wants beyond reproach.
If he stays, even if only into next season, he's the devout loyalist who gave them every opportunity to get it right. If he leaves, he's the devout-as-hell loyalist who merely saw the writing on the wall or was pushed out by a regime seeking a blank-slate start.
Loser: Josh Hart
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For a brief, glorious, fleeting moment, it looked like former Los Angeles Lakers teammates and obvious BFFs Josh Hart and Larry Nance Jr. would be reuniting in Portland.
Then the other moving parts were reported, and now they won't be reunited.
Nance will have an easier time coping with the disappointment. He should eventually get to play with Zion Williamson and is on a team that, for all of its enduring flaws, has carved out a more immediate timeline.
Hart has no such luxury, unless the Blazers trade him somewhere else prior to the deadline. Portland is a perfectly cool city, but he has now stumbled his way into another rebuilding situation. And his career-best season comes as little consolation knowing he's under team control for another season (nonguaranteed) at what projects as a not-so-lucrative-relative-to-his-impact salary ($13 million).
Winner: Anfernee Simons
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I mean, Anfernee Simons better be an enormous winner after the Blazers took a stick of dynamite to their backcourt rotation. No fewer than one of Portland's two trades to date become absolutely pointless if it isn't prepared to bathe him in cash during restricted free agency.
Limited cap space throughout the rest of the Association could theoretically repress Simons' market. Detroit, Indiana, Orlando, San Antonio and now Portland itself are the only teams forecasted to have serious above-mid-level-exception spending power.
Restricted free agency is already prohibitive since incumbent squads have the rights to match any offer sheet a player signs with another team. Finite flexibility leaguewide this offseason could make it even tougher for RFAs who aren't clear-cut max-contract candidates.
Simons probably doesn't have to care.
To say he's been revelation this season would be a gross understatement. He's parlayed a bigger role into a career-high 15.8 points and 3.6 assists per game while continuing to spit fire from beyond the arc. His 39.2 percent clip on threes is not a personal best, but it comes on more than nine attempts per 36 minutes and includes his effectively toggling between on- and off-ball marksmanship.
He's banging in 45.2 percent of his catch-and-shoot triples, a top-three mark among 92 players who have launched at least 150 standstill treys. And his off-the-dribble threes are falling at a 36.7 percent clip since Jan. 1—on elite volume.
Detroit or Indiana might be able to talk themselves into tendering a nice offer. Simons doesn't turn 23 until June, so he fits every timeline, and his improvement as a playmaker is real. He has capitalized on operating beside teammates who can put the ball on the floor immediately after catching his passes, but he's deferring and racking up assists on a higher percentage of his drives, despite his attacks having a tendency to stall out before the basket.
Whether Simons even needs the threat of a larger offer is separate matter. The Blazers just moved two of their most expensive swingmen in advance of his restricted free agency. Backing up the Brink's truck to retain his services appears to be their defining offseason aim.
To Be Determined: The Rest of the Trade Deadline
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Executives around the league gave Fischer the impression that CJ McCollum would be the flashiest player moved prior to the deadline. And, well, he's officially been moved. And so has Domantas Sabonis, for a return headlined by Tyrese Haliburton, per Wojnarowski.
Now what?
Does the onset activity in the days leading up to Thursday infer we're in for a wild, wacky, prominent-name-teeming, drunk-on-the-unexpected deadline? Is Myles Turner next? Better yet: Does a Bradley Beal trade request come out of (shallow) left field? Is there a surprise (and probably pointless) John Collins blockbuster?
And, oh yeah: What's going on with Mr. Indifference in Brooklyn? Is a James Harden-and-stuff-for-Ben Simmons-and-stuff going to happen? Will Simmons get sent elsewhere, maybe to one of the teams not yet mentioned as a suitor, which might mean he's jettisoned to a different league entirely?
Will something that amateur experts like myself didn't see coming smack us right in the face, blowing our Twitter timeline to smithereens, exactly two-minutes-and-37-seconds before the 3 p.m. cutoff?
Or, since McCollum, Sabonis and Haliburton have already been moved have the loudest, most garish pyrotechnics already gone off?
The stubborn optimist and proponent for chaos in me is leaning toward all of the former. The rest of this deadline will traffic in the pleasantly unpredictable, if only because predicting anything else is lame.
Potential Winners: Joel Embiid and Daryl Morey
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So many people wanted Philadelphia 76ers team president Daryl Morey just to deal Ben Simmons for whatever. At times, I found myself among them. The repetitive and morally icky nature of this news cycle and the opinions it spawned are grating even on the best days.
"No legitimate star is becoming available, so stop wasting Joel Embiid's latest MVP bid and get him help, any help, dammit!" is the boilerplate lens through which a large portion of fans and analysts viewed this saga.
So much for that.
Perhaps nothing happens by the deadline, but there does appear to be a better-than-expected chance that the trade market gets flooded by stars in the near future. James Harden might already be available—exclusively to Philadelphia. Bradley Beal and his agent met with Washington Wizards management Monday at Capital One Arena, according to NBC Sports Washington's Chase Hughes, for whatever that's worth. And now, Damian Lillard's tenure in Portland is legitimately in question as the team prepared to start over-ish.
Say what you will about Morey and the Sixers' approach to Simmons' trade demand. (Seriously: Do it!) But his refusal to settle increasingly looks like it will pay off—be it by Thursday or over the offseason.
Unless otherwise noted, stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference, Stathead or Cleaning the Glass and accurate entering Tuesday's games. Salary information via Spotrac.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@danfavale), and listen to his Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by NBA Math's Adam Fromal.
