1. Pioneer Xie Zhenlong chess game
Transaction content
The Blazers got Josh Hart, Satoransky, Nikir Alexander Walker, Marcos Lozada Silva, 1 2022 first-round (5-14 pick to the Blazers, if not made this year to become the future first round), 2 future second-round picks;
The Pelicans got CJ McCollum, Nance Jr., and Snell
trailblazer
If one team makes a confusing deal, it's often a wait for a follow-up, and maybe the other boot hasn't landed yet. The Blazers sent Powell and Covington away, presumably this type. While overestimating the value of Powell and Covington's contracts is common, the combined replacement of the two for a late-first-round rookie who cashed out and failed to cash in on his talent remained below expectations.
The Trailblazers can do this perfectly:
Find a few next players with playoff demands before the deal deadline, pick the best chips first, send away Covington, whose contract is about to expire, and then wait in the market for the opportunity to maximize the value of Powell, who has a longer contract. It takes longer to operate this way, and if the trailblazers want to rebuild, they don't care about waiting a little longer.
But the Blazers chose to strike early, which shows that things are not simple. After the deal, the Trail Blazers stood at a crossroads, making sense no matter how they chose. However, judging from the time between their two transactions and the clear purpose, it is clear that they already have the answer - Zhenlong chess game, put to death and live later.
During last year's offseason, the Trail Blazers' condition was suffocating. Lillard pressured management, but judging by the operation of management and the Blazers' salary structure, the Blazers had very limited room to operate. Getting Nance Jr. allowed the Blazers to lock in the future first round, leaving the Blazers incapable of launching stud-level trades. There is no point in trading CJ, CJ does not add other valuable assets, can not be exchanged for better players than CJ, the same level of different positioning of the replacement, for a team that has built a team in depth, it is difficult to break through the bottleneck.
But the Blazers are not desperate, because as long as they sell their assets, they can join the ranks of the Thunder and Rockets and become happy rebuilding players.
Desperate is Lillard, if he still has a need for the championship, then leaving is undoubtedly a more reliable way.
The backstory is here, and now looking at the Blazers' operations, it feels like they're in the fifth tier — they're impatient to swap out CJ, Powell, and Covington all for expiring contracts before the deal deadline, rather than pursuing more draft assets, which gives them the ability to clear up a lot of salary space this summer.
Have you ever thought about the Trail Blazers rebuilding in the way of salary space?
In this period when everyone is tight on hand and only the Thunder have surplus food, teams that mention the Blazers, which are heavily paid every year, usually do not think in this direction. But the Blazers do have the ability to do so, and after two deals, the Blazers' remaining names on their payroll for next season include:
Lillard, 42.5 million;
Alexander Walker, 5 million;
Winslow, 4.1 million;
Keane Johnson, 2.7 million;
Marcos Lozada Silva, 1.9 million;
Greg Brown, 1.6 million;
Andrew Nicholson, 2.8 million dead pay;
Bledsoe, 19.4 million (3.9 million for the safeguarded portion);
Josh Hart, 13 million (non-guaranteed);
Nurkic, 18 million bird rights occupied;
Anfine Simmons, 11.8 million bird rights holder;
Little, 6.9 million bird rights occupied.
What concept?
If the Blazers want to, they abandon non-guarantee contracts and bird rights placements, and at most they can clear out close to 50 million salary space, enough to quote any star in the market.
The reality is not so crazy, the Blazers at least retain Theaphne Simmons bird rights, and it is not wise to give up Nurkic's bird rights without the confidence to bring in a more senior star (they could have sent him away before the trade deadline). Even so, the Blazers still have 14 million salary space available in the case of retaining the bird rights of Nurkic, Simmons Jr., and Little, combined with the convenience of bird rights signing, they can pursue well-known stars, and can use space to introduce 3D strikers, which is in a very flexible situation.
Of course, Portland is not the place where stars flock to it, and Lillard is not a golden signboard, testing the free market with salary space, and the Blazers may not necessarily get satisfactory results. If that's the end of the storyline — giving Batum a contract that's higher than the Clippers' early bird offer, giving Ard a dignified pension, and finally signing Matthews and Lowe with a base salary to fill the big list and get the dream back to its original starting point — it doesn't seem particularly exciting.
But we also need to know these two things:
First of all, the Blazers don't just have salary space, after this wave of retreat, they have some young assets in their hands, including their own high-pick rookies after the record dive (the lottery zone does not have to give the Bulls), the first-round show from the Pelicans (there is no small probability), Simmons Jr. is restricted to free agent status, and last year's first-round pick Keane Johnson. These assets combined with salary space, the scope of talk can be large;
Second, there are many high-quality free agents in the market, but buyers in the market generally have no money, so it is not easy for the Blazers to return empty-handed. The Blazers can help Ayton and Xiaoqiao raise the price, let the Suns raise the top salary, and then they can pursue the key supporting roles of Otto Porter, Finney Smith, Batum, and Portis - the Warriors can only give Porter a mini-middle-class contract without considering the luxury tax explosion, and the Blazers can easily bid to beat any next home in the market that offers a full-scale middle-class contract. If done properly, the Blazers can retain Nurkic, Simmons Jr., Little, use the space to eat a 3D striker, and then use the full middle-class contract to get a quality supporting role.
The Blazers' two superimposed effects have produced a subtle superposition of benefits, giving them more possibilities for the future, which is unimaginable in the past few seasons, but after a move to die and the afterlife of self-clearance, the Blazers suddenly came back to life, and they regained their freedom in the construction of the team around Lillard.
It is very likely that it will continue to operate before the trading deadline. The Blazers can send small contracts like Blood Cloth and Winslow to the Thunder to further clean up space. It's also conservative to use expired contracts from BloodBug, Hart, and Satoransky to continue trading and get some chips instead of taking risks in the free market — though I don't like it. If the Blazers think they can't get a better player than Hart from the free agency market, giving Hart a positive turn is also a scenario.
All in all, there are many options, but the Blazers have one thing to keep in mind - only give long contracts to young people with top talent, you can give veterans big contracts, but you can't give long contracts. It's hard to get free, unless you meet the right person, don't trap yourself anymore.
The two-gun era is over, and sending CJ away is a sad farewell, but the case of the Warriors next door taking a step forward and adding talent and thickness in two years should give the Blazers some confidence, and this is also the last chance of the Lillard era.
pelican
You can clearly see the pelican's operating logic:
The Pelicans have high-level stars in both the front and inside, and although there are many people in the backcourt, the Pelicans are not satisfied with them. Finding a backcourt that can play the ball, sharing the development pressure of Ingram, and playing with Fat Tiger and Varan in the future, this demand is very clear.
Of the pelicans' discarded assets, Alexander Walker was basically unable to beat, and Satoransky and Marcos Lozada Silva were both added. Valuable is the first-round pick, and the defensive, energetic Hart.
My first reaction was that the Pelicans made a bad deal because CJ's level wasn't worth his contract, which was until 2024. With Fat Tigers claiming their first salary starting in the summer of 2023, the Pelicans will have at least CJ (35.8 million) + Ingram (33.8 million) + Fat Tigers (about 31 million) three-point contracts, plus Varan + Graham + others, the Pelicans' payroll will be quite intimidating, and CJ looks a lot like the current role of Tobias Harris.
In addition, the pelicans, the four kings, do have room for imagination on the offensive end, but after adding Graham, the defense is afraid that it is difficult to save, they are more suitable for putting a high defender who does not occupy the ball, can deal cards, can open space, and can defend in the No. 1 position - I think a player named Lonzo Ball is good. In the long run, whether it is to alleviate future financial pressures or consider the team's starting compatibility, it is more appropriate to replace Graham with a short contract.
But from the Pelicans' point of view, there are still ways to operate the financial problems, and the urgency of the team to win is really there, after all, they have a tradition of leaving the core of the team. The Pelicans don't want to wait, whether the Fat Tigers can return this season, the Pelicans want to return to the playoffs as soon as possible, in the case of the Blazers demolition, they are likely to catch the last train of the Western Conference playoffs, at this time reinforcement, there is hope to reach the playoffs.
We have to think about two questions:
First, can the Pelicans use a large number of draft picks in their hands to make a stud trade and get a guard at a higher level than CJ? At present, I can't think of who this person is — is it necessary to let the Nets sign first and then change Irving?
Second, do pelicans have enough time to pick a defender seedling and then cultivate it themselves? I'm afraid it's too late, the Pelicans want to enter win mode, there is no time for the high-ranking ball-holding defender.
Unconsciously, fat tigers are going to finish their third season, although fat tigers themselves may have more injury problems than pelican configuration problems, but as long as fat tigers are not completely finished, it is of course more reasonable to blame the environment than to blame the stars. So the Pelicans' mentality of wanting to get into winning mode will make them less picky when they introduce stars.
In addition, in the case of Herbert Jones, it would not be very painful to send Hart away this contract that was entangled in execution or non-execution. The Blazers spent the first round to get Nance Jr., and the Pelicans spent a first round (a little more expensive than the Blazers) to get him and didn't lose, so the Pelicans had a larger defender, with a defensive flanking for defensive front, in line with the Pelicans' needs.
In other words, if you look at the deal as a pelican that adds a financial burden to the future, reduces operational flexibility a little, but skips the youth development process and establishes the core framework of the fat tiger + Ingram + CJ + Varan in the next two seasons, it will feel much better. Because they still have a lot of first-round picks in hand, they can not only match the first-round picks, but over time, find a new way out of the contracts of young people, Graham, Varan and even CJ, and can also rely on the draft picks in recent years to continuously replenish new blood, and do not worry about obtaining supporting roles of cheap labor. The so-called inflexible pelicans are not sitting on the mountain, in fact, the main difficulty is how much money the boss is willing to spend.
Trade Ratings: Trailblazer A, Pelicans B-
2. The king still did not hold back
The Kings made Sabonis Junior, Justin Holliday, Lamb, second-round picks for 2027
Pacers get Halliburton, Hilde, Tristan Thompson
king
The king still did not hold back.
I discussed this tangled topic in a recent paid article:
Should the king be a buyer or a seller before the deal deadline?
The final conclusion is that none of them are appropriate. The Kings are only suitable for dealing with players like Hield and TT who have no future in the team, not for making a big fuss, sending players from the core team away, or studing a deal that allows them to win in the present. The king has contradictions in playing two roles:
When a buyer, they have to consider whether they are well prepared. The Timberwolves, the Suns, and the Bulls are indeed cases that the Kings can observe, but before they became buyers, they all had clear core players, and the Kings did not;
When sellers, they are enthusiastically demanded by the market players, such as Barnes, Holmes, are still useful for long-term team building, and for the Kings who are eager to return to the playoffs, such players are still useful. Even if the Kings want to mess up, they don't have to send away players who can win, after all, in terms of their overall defensive performance, what is the difference between them and swinging bad.
The Kings still insist that by optimizing their staffing, they will be closer to the playoffs than they are now. Indeed, there is no player in the Kings squad who is at a higher level than Sabonis Jr., and Sam's age is also suitable for Fox to serve as a long-term team building combination. Meanwhile, the Justin Holliday he got was worth the rotation time, and the King's paper power was stronger than before the trade.
But the next question is, how does the King deal with the compatibility of Sam, Barnes, and Holmes? Sam has the problem of overlapping with Turner's offensive positioning in the Pacers, Turner as an interior line with a jump shot, handed over the final scene, but Holmes is also a terminator, he and Sa have to be covered down, how to solve this? Perhaps the knight's "three highs" gave the king confidence, but the problem is that the knights ' three highs" are also awkward on the offensive end, and people still want defense. The defensive advantage of the Kings' two towers is probably just that rebounds won't suck as much as they used to.
If Sam starts in the No. 5 position, are he and Barnes the worst interior combination in the league?
The Kings will have to make another trade to optimize the frontcourt mix, and if they can turn Holmes into a big forward who is good at assisting and shooting, maybe the deal will still look good.
So far, the deal seems to resolve only one thing — the Kings confirmed Fox's position at the heart of the team, avoiding the struggle between Fox and Halliburton's choice. Halliburton has a lower talent cap than Fox and looks like he can be the best second boss, but the King wants to find their big boss, and this appeal is easier to see in Fox. As a trading chip, Fox, who has taken a large contract and has a sluggish performance, is far inferior to Halliburton in the market, so the King's choice is in line with the evaluation of "leaving players with higher ceilings and sending away contracts with higher transaction value".
All you can say is that Fox's stagnation this season came at an inopportune time, creating a sense that he and Halliburton had to have a break, and the Kings chose Xiaomi Cher during the sabbatical and gave management a sense of superiority that "I was prepared". But Fox played bader because he just did, and Halliburton was just a backdoor. If the Fox + Sabonis combination doesn't make a name for itself, then sending away Halliburton is off the beaten track.
The Kings wanted to make the playoffs so badly that even if they just put together a play-off lineup, they couldn't hold back. Hopefully, Sabonis Jr. will be the start of their transfer, after all, the last time they could play, there was a big forward who could pass the ball, and a big white man.
pedestrian
There's nothing to say, of all the poses that sent away Sam, the walkers encountered the best. The Pacers don't like collapse therapy and prefer a rebuild to function like a lineup tweak. Getting a young man with the potential to play at a high level is undoubtedly closer to the Pacers' expectations of "quick recovery" than getting the draft pick, and Halliburton + Brogdon will be a very attractive combination. Hield is a by-product of the deal, the Pacers have Duarte, there is no hiernd position anymore, but there may be a next home in the market that interests Hield, and the Pacers may not have too difficulty handling the contract.
Trade Ratings: Kings D+, Pacers A+