A four-step plan for the Portland Trail Blazers to emerge as win-now contenders next season.
Despite trading three starters and their sixth man just before the trade deadline, the Portland Trail Blazers insist they want to win, rather than rebuild, next season. And while their trade compensation sure doesn’t indicate they want to rebuild (one first-round pick from the Pelicans, probable to convey this summer,) it doesn’t necessarily indicate they can win.
As it stands, their roster has four NBA-caliber rotation players in Damian Lillard, Josh Hart, Yusuf Nurkic (a free-agent-to-be), and Anfernee Simons (a restricted free-agent-to-be.) Yet rumors continue to circulate that they want to compete during the twilight of Lillard’s prime and that they want to trade for Jerami Grant, the second-best player of a bottom-three team in the league.
Grant, alone, won’t make them a contender, but there does exist a conceivable – if an improbable – four-step plan for the team becoming one, and it goes something like this.