NBA Trade Rumors: 5 blockbuster deals that make sense

SAN ANTONIO,TX – OCTOBER 18: Andrew Wiggins #22 of the Minnesota Timberwolves drives for two against the San Antonio Spurs at AT&T Center on October 18, 2017 in San Antonio, Texas. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that , by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Ronald Cortes/Getty Images)

Mason’s Trade

Portland Gets: Jeff Teague, Andrew Wiggins, Aaron Brooks, Shabazz Muhammad

Minnesota Gets: Damian Lillard, Portland’s 2018 1st

Why it works: At first glance, it looks like Minnesota is giving up a lot (even for a player of Lillard’s caliber) – a small market team that is (most likely) heading to the playoffs for the first time in 14 (15?) years surrendering depth. When you take a look closer, it makes a lot of sense (for both sides).

At the time of this writing, Minnesota is sitting comfortably in fourth place in the Western Conference, sporting a 32-21 record – with special thanks to monstrous contributions by Jimmy Butler and Karl-Anthony Towns, and a surprisingly solid season out of veteran big man (and Thibs favorite) Taj Gibson. Oh, I left out Andrew Wiggins and Jeff Teague? There’s a reason.

Jeff Teague has started in all the games he’s played in his first season in Minnesota – the problem is he’s only played in 42 of their games. While Tyus Jones has shown he’s a capable point guard in this league, he’s better coming off the bench. Teague is currently averaging 13.0 PPG, 5.4 TRPG, and 5.0 APG on a .423/.348/.820 line – decent numbers, but nothing special.

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Replace him with Damian Lillard – a star in this league that is averaging a gaudy 25.4 PPG, 4.7 TRPG, and 6.4 APG with a .519 eFG% and shooting 37.1% from deep on 8.1 attempts a game – pair him with one of the most dynamic 2s in the league in Butler, and a rapidly evolving KAT? KD wouldn’t have enough burner accounts to handle the love Minnesota would be getting.

Portland, on the other hand, is sitting in 7th place with a 27-22 record. They will probably make the playoffs, but with the Clippers potentially making a postseason push, and the Nuggets getting back Millsap soon, they are no lock.

Unfortunately for them, despite how potent offensively the backcourt duo of McCollum and Lillard is, the story is not the same on the other side of the ball – and you can’t make an argument for hope of improvement either – this is their 5th consecutive season together. Add that to a host of unnecessary money thrown at role players, and like Ben alluded to, can only take you so far. So let’s mix it up for them, shall we?

While Portland isn’t getting rid of Turner’s contract, they are acquiring a reason to not play him as much. While Wiggins’ massive 5 year, nearly 150 million dollar contract kicks in next season, and Portland is another small market team, they are offloading Lillard’s $26.1 million from their team payroll, so it’s essentially a salary swap – but will drastically change the way their offense works.

When Lillard has missed time, McCollum has had monster games, and showcased the full extent of his offensive repertoire. The scary thing to think about is that despite only being a year younger than Lillard, I think he still has gobs of potential that hasn’t been tapped into yet; mainly due to having Lillard as his backcourt teammate. Just imagine for C.J. becoming the clear cut no. 1 option, it being his team.

Teague would serve as a more complementary, and Wiggins would become the clear no. 3. Nurkic can become a distant fourth, which could make it easier for them to part with him in the offseason if they so choose.

Now, you could make arguments for Brooks and Muhammad being included to just match salary, and for the purposes of this exercise they were… to an extent. They’ve played a combined 441 minutes between them this year for Minnesota, and Brooks is especially expendable with Shabazz Napier’s emergence this year. It doesn’t hurt to have a veteran point guard with playoff experience though, and from what I’ve read, Brooks is a great teammate. But I digress.

What if Stotts decides to experiment a little, and trots out a starting five of McCollum, Muhammad, Wiggins, Aminu, and Nurkic? Muhammad has shown his scoring ability in the past, but (puzzingly) hasn’t received much playing time despite re-signing with Minnesota. It may be due more to Thibodeau’s short rotations, but I’m not a Timberwolves employee so I can’t help you there. What I can help you with are thinking about what the following rotations could look like for Portland if this deal occurred:

McCollum-Muhammad-Wiggins-Aminu-Nurkic

Napier-Teague-Turner-Davis-Collins/Vonleh

Teague-McCollum-Turner-Wiggins-Nurkic

Napier-Muhammad-Aminu-Davis-Collins/Vonleh

You obviously can go on and on with this, but those are interesting to think about, no?

If you’ve read this far, and still think I’m bonkers – ‘Lillard is the face of the franchise, he loves Portland! It’d be cold to trade him!’ I’ll leave you with this:

How would you have reacted in January 2017 if someone told you in one year that Blake Griffin would be on the Pistons, Kyrie Irving would be on the Celtics, Chris Paul would be on the Rockets, and Paul George would be on the Thunder?
— Kevin O'Connor (@KevinOConnorNBA) January 30, 2018

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