Does this trade make sense for Portland Trail Blazers?
Their backcourt and firepower on offense have been the main strength of the Portland Trail Blazers over the years, but defensively, they are a mess.
During the 2020-21 season, Portland ranked 23rd in the league in opponents’ points per game, and they allowed their opponents to shoot 47.3% from the floor, the 6th worst in the league in terms of defensive production.
As mentioned before, the Trail Blazers also ranked 29th in the league in defensive rating, ranking them as one of the worst all-around defensive teams in the league. How they approach fixing that will be something to watch during the 2021-22 season, given how those results are unacceptable for a contender.
Adding Ben Simmons to their team not only gives Lillard another All-Star talent to play with, but Simmons would make Portland so much better on the defensive end of the court. Robert Covington is a really solid defender in his own right, so having these two lead the Blazers on the defensive end of the court could be highly beneficial.
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Moving McCollum for Simmons does make the Trail Blazers offense worse. Still, they would be adding a key bench talent in Shake Milton to make their second-unit better, and Norman Powell could step up into more of a scoring role with Portland, much like he was in Toronto when he was averaging 19.6 points per game.
This is definitely a tough scenario to think about for the Blazers. Still, even though Ben Simmons would make them better defensively, this trade could very much wind up leading to Damian Lillard leaving Portland.
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Lillard wants to win now, and bringing Simmons may not present the best “win-now” move, forcing the Blazers to rebuild.
They definitely need to make some kind of a move to add more talent, but any trade with the Philadelphia 76ers looks like it would not really help the Blazers during the 2021-22 season.
