The 2026 NBA Trade Deadline is coming up on February 5th, about five weeks away. The wires have been quiet across the league so far, but there are sure to be waves and splashes before the clock hits zero on the big date. The margins are too tight and the cost of carrying excess talent too steep to keep the market depressed for long.
The Portland Trail Blazers may or may not be included in any trading frenzy this winter. They’re right on the border. They could be buyers or sellers. They have some future
assets to move but not an overwhelming amount. They have young talent, but not the kind that will attract overt attention. That leaves their participation murky, a matter of opportunity rather than natural consequence.
Wondering (worrying?) about which Blazers may be moved lies at the heart of today’s Blazer’s Edge Mailbag question.
Dave,
How do you see the trade deadline working out this year? Any Blazers you think are likely to be on their way out? I can’t decide if anyone on this team besides Deni are truly valuable. Who do you think could be moved?
Mike
In the intro I just mentioned compact standings as a motivator towards buyers making deals. I suspect there’s a corresponding depressing factor. Financial penalties are much stricter now. Teams can’t afford to speculate contract-wise the way they once would have. Back in Paul Allen’s heyday, all you needed was a billionaire owner willing to absorb the cost and you could do pretty much anything you pleased. Now NBA General Managers have to face the reality that a move made today could come back to haunt them 2-3 years from now, gumming up their cap and robbing them of flexibility, if not credibility. Executives and owners need to be sure of the impact of their moves and aware of the costs. That’s going to leave teams without clear, immediate paths forward shy about trading.
That dam will break. It always does. But like we just said, whether the flood will involve the Blazers remains to be seen. They won’t pass up players they like, but I don’t see them reaching mid-season for players that get them ten feet ahead when they need to be ten miles, and maybe in a different direction. It doesn’t help that many of their players have been injured, and thus are presumably at the low ebb of their value. The only way to make up for that is draft picks. Portland worked hard to obtain those. They probably won’t let them go easily.
With all of that in mind, I’ll do my best to spitball the trade likelihood of various members of the roster. Consider this an open discussion rather than a magnum opus analysis. I’m not sure any of us know for sure what Portland’s plans are. Even if they did have a master blueprint, getting new owner in spring could change their direction entirely, leaving the whole point moot. But knowing what we know now, here’s what I’d guess.
Jrue Holiday—Trade Likelihood 4/10
Holiday is likely to be kept. He’s injured. The Blazers got him because they liked him. But he’s an attractive veteran with a championship pedigree. He’s also shown he’s got some hops and chops left in him, even at 35 years of age. The big problem—and the big motivator for the Blazers to move him—is his three-year, $103 million contract. That’s a ton of obligation for a lower-minute starter or key bench player. Yes, league revenue is inflating, but decision-makers have to think about paying 38-year-old Jrue, not just the current version. The number of teams willing to take on that obligation are probably small.
Jerami Grant—Trade Likelihood 3/10
Jerami Grant has done everything he’s needed to do this season to rehab a reputation besmirched by a slump last year. His three-point percentage is back up to 39%. He’s scoring 20 points per game. He’s still only 31 years of age. He could help several teams. His problem is the same as Holiday’s: a large contract extending through 2027-28. We should also mention that Grant’s and Holiday’s contracts are in a weird “$30 million” zone, a bit too small to trade for true star contracts, far too large to move for young players, and nearly impossible to combine in ways that make sense. That makes trading them much more difficult, with multi-player or multi-team schemes becoming a necessity.
Deni Avdija—Trade Likelihood 1/10
Avdija is clearly the most valuable Trail Blazers player in production-to-contract ratio. That would make him an easy sell on the market. But he’s approaching All-Star status, doing everything the Blazers envisioned and more. We can argue whether that’s happening because of the free rein he’s getting on offense, but for the next few months it’s a moot point. The Blazers probably won’t trade their best player just as he starts to peak. What comparable assets—present or future—could they get to justify such a deal? And how would they ever sell that swap to a new owner?
Damian Lillard—Trade Likelihood 0/10
The Blazers got Lillard last summer for a feel-good story. Someday, maybe, his contract could be used for contract ballast. But that’s not going to happen in February. He’s not able to play. He has a no-trade clause in his contract. He’s not going anywhere except under miraculous circumstances.
Robert Williams III—Trade Likelihood 6/10
Robert Williams III has played 21 of 33 games for the Blazers this year. That’s good enough to put him back under discussion on the trade market. He carries an expiring contract. The question for the Blazers isn’t how well he’s playing (just fine, thank you) but whether they intend to re-sign him next season and whether he’d want to come back. If either of those questions is open, it’d make sense for Portland to explore trade options now. If they could get future draft capital for him, they might consider it. The problem is, they wouldn’t want to take on long contracts. Because of his injury history, Williams won’t draw a huge offer. It’d be easy to trade him overall, but finding the right deal may take some thinking.
Matisse Thybulle—Trade Likelihood 7/10
Like many other Blazers, Matisse Thybulle has been injured for most of the season. But his $11.5 million expiring contract can work in a host of ways to facilitate deals with other players. Portland is stacked with wings already. They won’t need Thybulle back next season. That makes Matisse the most likely Blazer to be traded in the next month.
Scoot Henderson—Trade Likelihood 2/10
I don’t know how the Blazers feel about Scoot Henderson. You don’t know how the Blazers feel about Scoot Henderson. Only the Blazers know how the Blazers feel about Scoot Henderson. We do know the following things though:
- He’s still on a rookie contract
- He was an ultra-high draft pick who has not been traded, and thus still carries some of that “what if” mystique, having not disproven his value
- He’s still a major athlete
- Deni Avdija’s ballhandling, Shaedon Sharpe’s scoring, and Jrue Holiday’s presence may lessen the need for Scoot in Portland slightly
Given that, it’s not impossible that the Blazers might look to move their young point guard. It doesn’t seem likely. Scoot being injured puts a huge damper on the market. This is more likely a move made next summer than now.
Shaedon Sharpe—Trade Likelihood 0/10
Even if they wanted to, the Blazers couldn’t trade Sharpe until July. His contract extension restricts his mobility this year.
Toumani Camara—Trade Likelihood 0/10
Ditto that for Toumani Camara. His restriction doesn’t lift until April, after the trade deadline.
Donovan Clingan and Yang Hansen—Trade Likelihood 1/10
Portland’s young centers are still proving their worth. They’d have value in trade, but not enough to make Portland blink. They could be throw-ins to other deals. That’s the only scenario that works intellectually. Otherwise one has to ask why the Blazers spent lottery picks on players they traded a year or two later for middling gain.
Everyone Else—Trade Likelihood As Needed
The rest of Portland’s roster would be available under the right conditions, i.e. as salary ballast. Otherwise nobody is proven enough to talk about seriously. It would surprise or dismay me to see any of the lower roster players moved. Nor would it surprise or dismay me to see them stay.
Those are my knee-jerk assessments. What are yours? Share where I went wrong (or right) in the comments section! And thanks for the question! You can always send yours to blazersub@gmail.com and we’ll try to answer as many as possible!
