Worst Moves
The Blazers trading for Hassan Whiteside
Portland desperately needed a starting center with Nurkic rehabbing his leg fracture and it didn’t hurt that Whiteside was on an expiring deal. Only the Blazers’ season has been very disappointing following their Western Conference Finals run last year.
Given their injuries and losing record, the Blazers even became the first team to sign Carmelo Anthony and have him start immediately at the four position.
To say that the Blazers could have done that significantly better this offseason is somewhat unfair and unrealistic due to them being $12 million into the luxury tax as of today i.e., they never had the cap flexibility to truly address the center position during the 2019 summer.
The Blazers tried resigning Kanter and that didn’t work, so the big question in hindsight is: was trading for a better frontcourt player (with more years on his contract) going to help their situation or worsen it given where they are in their timeline?
Either way, so far, Whiteside has continued to live up to the many concerns the league has of him as a player: someone who is often out of defensive position in order to simply pad his stats when it comes to shot-blocking.
Whenever one looks at Whiteside’s stats, they tend to look really good, so maybe some team will become convinced to give him another large deal, but I’m pretty sure the Heat are really thanking the Blazers on this one, especially given the confidence they developed in Bam Adebayo‘s potential in the aftermath of his second year.