Talking sports: Trail Blazers trading frenzy, MLB strike and Adley Rutschman, Pioneers’ Jay Locey to the USFL
Jay Locey, who recently resigned as head coach at Lewis & Clark, will join Mike Riley’s staff with the USFL New Jersey Generals
Weighing in some sporting issues of the day …
• There must be a method to Joe Cronin’s madness.
Or as Ricky Ricardo might say, “Somebody’s got some ‘splainin’ to do.”
No team was more active at the NBA trade deadline than the Trail Blazers, who dealt five veteran members of their current club, including starters CJ McCollum and Norman Powell.
My feeling is, the Blazers didn’t get nearly enough in return. I’ll explain why in this column.
Cronin, who took over as interim general manager for the deposed Neil Olshey in December, knew he had several important duties to perform prior to the deadline. He had to get the Blazers under the luxury tax, trim the abundance of high-priced guards and get something of value for veterans Robert Covington and Jusuf Nurkic, set to become free agents on July 1.
Covington went with Powell to the L.A. Clippers for Eric Bledsoe, Keon Johnson, Justise Winslow and a future second-round pick. Nurkic, surprisingly to me, remains on the Portland roster.
In something of a blockbuster, the Blazers dealt McCollum, Larry Nance Jr. and Tony Snell to New Orleans for Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Josh Hart, Didi Louzada, Tomas Satoransky, a 2022 first-round pick (which they’ll get if the Pelicans finish in the draft spot between No. 5 and 14, a good bet) and a pair of future second-round picks.
Cronin then sent Alexander-Walker — a part-time starter for the Pelicans averaging 12.8 points and probably the most promising of his young acquisitions — to Utah, and Satoransky and a second-round pick to San Antonio, in a three-way deal. Portland reaped the expiring contracts of Joe Ingles and Elijah Hughes and a second-round pick from the Jazz.
To summarize: the Blazers gave away McCollum, Powell, Covington, Nance and Snell — starters or capable rotation guys — for Hart, Bledsoe, Ingles, Johnson, Winslow, Hughes, Louzada, a first-round pick (though not for sure this year) and three second-round picks.
Bledsoe is currently injured and has a $3 million buyout of the one year remaining on his contract. He won’t be with the Blazers next year. Ingles? He’s out for the season after ACL knee surgery, and he won’t be buying Powell’s recently purchased house in Portland. He has an expiring contract and I’m guessing he’ll re-sign with the Jazz for next season.
Of the remaining acquisitions, Hart would seem to be the only sure-fire candidate for at least rotation duty next season.
Portland didn’t have to move Powell now, not with the deal that sent McCollum to the Pelicans. It might have made more sense to trade Powell this summer, when the market may be more lucrative.
Except the Blazers don’t want to win this season. If they don’t make the playoffs, they will retain their draft pick that would have gone to Chicago (conveyed in the deal for Nance).
(Too bad, incidentally, that Olshey didn’t keep Gary Trent Jr., instead of trading him to Toronto for Powell last season. Trent, 23, would have signed for less than Powell and still has plenty of upside. He is averaging 18.2 points while shooting .401 from 3-point range for Raptors this season.)
There is an upside, of course, to the deals Cronin crafted for the Blazers.
The departure of McCollum and Powell opens the door for Anfernee Simons — who will be a restricted free agent this summer — to blossom in the Portland backcourt with Damian Lillard.
CJ McCollum and Damian Lillard were partners together in the Blazers’ backcourt for 7 1/2 years. With McCollum gone, Lillard will be paired with Anfernee Simons.
The Blazers unloaded McCollum’s salary, got out of the luxury tax, created a $21 million trade exception, gained some financial flexibility and are now likely to retain their draft pick that is lottery-protected. Right now, they are slotted to have the eighth and ninth picks in the 2022 draft along with a pair of second-round selections.
The NBA salary cap is projected to be about $121 million next season. The luxury tax threshold is projected as $147 million. You want space under the cap? The Blazers will have space.
For next season, Portland holds contracts for Lillard ($42.5 million), Bledsoe ($19.38 million, though only $3 million guaranteed), Johnson ($2.7 million), Nassir Little ($4.17 million), Winslow ($4.1 million), Louzada ($1.88 million) and Greg Brown III ($1.56 million). That doesn’t include Simons, who will be a restricted free agent, and Hart, who has a $12.96-million non-guaranteed deal. With a buyout of Bledsoe’s deal, and adding about $8.6 million to pay the two first-round picks, the Blazers could have as much as $65 million to work with.
A closer look doesn’t seem quite as rosy.
I don’t know what Simons’ value is, but it’s clear he is a major part of the Blazers’ future. I’m guessing the 22-year-old guard will reap in the neighborhood of a four-year, $80-million extension.
Then there is Nurkic, 27, who evidently is in the Blazers’ future, too. The sometimes very good but wholly unreliable 7-footer would have been traded if that were not the case. He’ll be unrestricted on July 1 and is likely to get some nice offers around the league. To keep him, Portland will probably have to offer him a deal similar to that of Simons.
The Blazers have Bird rights on both players so can sign them after any free-agent acquisitions. I’m sure Cronin has already thoroughly perused the list of more than 200 potential free agents on the whiteboard of his office at the Blazers’ training facility in Tualatin. He’d better hope he has better luck than his predecessors at luring talent to the Ripped City. The trade exception might be Cronin’s best vehicle this summer.
Interim GM Joe Cronin was active at the trade deadline. Now he has more work to do filling in the pieces.
More than anything, the Blazers will need size and forwards who can defend. I’m not sure I’d have tried to engineer a trade for Ben Simmons, who wound up with Brooklyn. But I surely would have had interest in 6-11 Domantis Sabonis (who went to Sacramento) along with a pair of 6-7 role players, Montrezl Harrell (to Charlotte) and Torrey Craig (to Phoenix).
Then there is the very important issue of Lillard’s career time line. Two first-round draft picks are great for the future, but the future is now for the Blazers’ franchise point guard, who turns 32 in July and is inevitably heading toward the down side of a Hall of Fame career.
Will he seek a trade? I don’t think so.
He very much enjoys his status as a living legend in Portland, where most of his family has settled. He says he loves Chauncey Billups as coach and claims to be a Cronin fan. Soon we’ll see what kind of a fan Cronin is of Lillard.
If the Blazers add a maximum-value two-year extension to Lillard’s current contract this summer, he’ll reap $51.2 million when he is 35 (2025-26) and $55.3 million when he is 36 (2026-27). Discounting playoffs, that works out to be $64,634 a game. (The median annual household income in Oregon in 2019 was $62,818.) Lillard will surely want the extension; were I Cronin, I’d say no.
My guess is that Lillard and Simons will be together in the starting lineup for the Blazers next season — one of the most explosive backcourts in the league, but one of the weakest tandems at the defensive end. Nurkic will be in the middle, with Little at small forward. Hart will be a key part off the bench, should the Blazers choose to keep him — and that’s likely with his cap-friendly salary. Ben McLemore, who has had periods of brilliance this season, might be retained, too. After that, Cronin will have to fill in the pieces — a lot of them.
One other question to be answered: How long will Jody Allen want to own the club? It was recently valued at $1.9 billion. We don’t know if she loves the club as did her brother, because she has never once spoken to media since taking ownership after Paul Allen’s death in 2018. The guess is, it’s strictly an investment, and it’s been a great one for the Allen family.
There will be plenty of suitors if and when she decides to sell. I’m hoping it happens. It would be nice to have someone with some passion running the team. A little passion trumps absentee ownership any day.
• When the season began, BetOnline.ag had the Blazers as a 33-1 shot to win the NBA championship — tied for 12th among teams. Today, they are listed at 300-1. Only seven clubs — San Antonio, Sacramento, Indiana, Oklahoma City, Houston, Detroit and Orlando — are behind them. I wouldn’t bet a wooden nickel on a one of them.
• As it celebrates its 75th anniversary season, the NBA announced its 15 greatest coaches in history this week. One of them is Miami’s Erik Spoelstra, the Jesuit High and University of Portland grad in his 14th season coaching the Heat. He won back-to-back NBA championships in 2011-12 and ’12-13.
Two former Trail Blazer coaches made the list — Lenny Wilkens, the team’s only player-coach (1974-75) who also coached them in 1975-76, and Jack Ramsay, who guided Portland to its only NBA title in 1976-77. Golden State coach Steve Kerr, who played for the Blazers in 2001-02, also made the Fab Fifteen.
• A word on the major-league baseball strike, or two words:
It sucks.
In the past, I’ve normally been on the side of ownership during work stoppages in professional sports.
This time, I’m on the other side. The billionaire owners got the better of the last collective-bargaining agreement. It’s time for them to meet the players halfway on a number of items on agenda, including service time manipulation, in which MLB-ready players are kept in the minors to maximize the amount of time they are under a team’s control.
• If and when the sides reach agreement, we’ll likely finally see the debut of Baltimore catcher Adley Rutschman. The Athletic website ranks the former Oregon State All-American, 24, as the No. 1 prospect in all of baseball. He hit .312 with a .405 on-base percentage in Triple A last season. Service-time manipulation kept him out of the big leagues in ’21. There will be no such holding him back this time.
• A familiar name will be joining Mike Riley’s coaching staff with the New Jersey Generals of the USFL this spring.
Jay Locey, who resigned last week as head coach at Lewis & Clark, will join Riley in Birmingham, Ala., as the Generals’ coach for tight ends and running backs.
“I’m really excited,” said Locey, 67, who coached for nine years with Riley at Oregon State. “It will be fun to work with Mike again. It will be an adventure.”
Locey, a Corvallis native and All-Pac-8 safety at Oregon State, has coached 44 years, including 23 years at Linfield — where he won an NCAA Division III national championship — and the last seven years at Lewis & Clark. Locey took a woebegone program and made it competitive in the Northwest Conference, and will now turn the reins over to his offensive coordinator, Joe Bushman.
“I give the analogy of an exchange in a 4x-100-meter relay,” Locey says. “The program is moving in the right direction, and I’m handing it over to Joe and the rest of his staff. Players have a good deal of respect and appreciation for them. There will be no dip or slowdown.”
Locey coached tight ends and running backs at Oregon State, “so it’s right up his alley,” Riley says. “Jay is a diligent coach and teacher, and the kids love him. He’s a great fit. We’re going to have fun together.”
Riley has also hired Jeff McInerney — who coached for him one season at Oregon State in 1998 — to coach the defensive line and special teams for the Generals, who will play all their games in the eight-team USFL in Birmingham this season.
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