As the 2026 NBA Trade Deadline approaches, point guards are flying across the NBA landscape. The Washington Wizards just acquired Trae Young from the Atlanta Hawks. It appears that Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant will be the next domino to fall.
Meanwhile, up in the corner of the country, the Portland Trail Blazers are playing largely without point guards, with Jrue Holiday having played only 13 games all season and Scoot Henderson on a seemingly-eternal injury recovery track.
Putting two and two together
has led one Blazer’s Edge Reader to the question featured in today’s Blazer’s Edge Mailbag.
Dave,
Trae Young has been traded and it looks like Ja Morant might be next. If Memphis is ok trading him for the same terms as Trae would you consider that?
I’m just wondering if we need to solve the point guard problem with a big swing at a star. You have Jrue and Jerami’s contracts and maybe a young player. If we could get a bargain couldn’t this change the team right away?
Mike
It’s a complex question. The simple solution seems like, “Blazers need point guard. Blazers get point guard. Profit!” Almost every part of the assertion bears scrutiny, however.
First, we have to ask if the Blazers need a point guard. We don’t know how they feel about Henderson. He’s obviously waiting in the wings. If he’s still a part of their plans, bringing on someone who’s going to eat 34 minutes and countless possessions at his position is a no-go. Scoot has gotten better at playing off the ball, or at least he was last time we saw him. But you can’t take the ball out of his hands totally and expect him to function, let alone prosper.
There’s also the matter of Holiday, whom the Blazers appear to covet. You don’t have to dig far into these mailbags to find multiple examples of me asking whether taking on Holiday’s contract at his age was a good idea. That’s water under the bridge now. Jrue is home. What’s more, he has a particular quality that makes him near-ideal in this situation, a quality that Trae Young, Ja Morant, and LaMelo Ball don’t possess. Hold onto that thought for a second.
Here’s the reality for Portland right now: Deni Avdija is the de facto point guard. He didn’t start out that way. They didn’t mean for it to happen that way. That’s the way it is. All things considered, he’s doing a pretty good job at it. Avdija is blossoming in an environment where he has few, if any, boundaries on his play and creativity and has control of the ball pretty much whenever he wants it.
I don’t believe Avdija will prosper forever as a true point guard. Note that this is different than saying I don’t believe Avdija is a good player, an All-Star, or an All-NBA candidate. He can still be all those things. But amazing point guards in the NBA defy containment. If you play up on them, they’ll drive past you. If you sag back, they’ll hit the three. If you send help, they’ll pass accurately. They’re crafty, slippery, smart, and always hitting where the defense isn’t. For all his talent, Deni is not quite that type of player. He gets frustrated by defenses that take away his right hand, force him to stay on the perimeter, or pressure him into turnovers. He may be one of the best secondary facilitators in the league, but I don’t think you’re going to see “PG” by his name long-term.
I do agree that the Blazers need a point guard alongside Avdija. But the reality is, whomever you put there is going to boundary his nearly-limitless play. You’re going to nerf Deni–maybe a little, maybe a lot–by putting the ball in someone else’s hands. So the real questions are, “For whom, or what, would you do that? How do you minimize the effects so they’re tolerable?”
Players like Young and Morant make strong cases in the “for whom?” department. Historically they’re big scorers. Young has also led the league in assists per game and assist percentage. If we assume for the sake of argument that one of these players would return to peak form in Portland, you could forecast a positive transformation at the position.
The thing is, to achieve those results, these players eat an enormous number of possessions. Their usage rating in peak seasons (or heck, even in recent ones) would qualify for Top 5 in the NBA this year. Deni himself ranks 19th in this category, and that’s while commanding every possession he could possibly conceive of. They need all that and more. That is 100% certain to cause a backslide in Avdija’s production, counterbalancing the progress made with the new addition. The Blazers might end up ahead in aggregate, but not by as much as you’d think.
We also need to factor in defense. None of the popular point guards changing hands right now are known for their defensive prowess. All of them would play heavy starter’s minutes. That’s a constant, unavoidable leak in Portland’s ship, one which would cause Avdija, Toumani Camara, and Donovan Clingan to have to work even harder just to maintain ground.
Let’s circle back to Holiday now. He’s known for his defense. Even at his relatively-advanced age he plays it well. Also he has the huge benefit of being able to step forward whenever needed without hogging the spotlight or the ball. This was, no doubt, one of the rationales for obtaining him in the first place. The Blazers aren’t just paying for Holiday’s production, but for the ability to stack nearly-unlimited Deni on top of it without interference. In this way, the front office might argue that they’ve already got the perfect point guard in hand.
The question, of course, is how far an Avdija-Holiday combo can take Portland. Almost certainly it’s not far enough. That means the door should be open on trades for point guards, especially if they don’t believe in Henderson as much as they once did. But they’re going to want to strike a balance between production and assimilation. If they did make a big trade, the incoming player would need to have as much Holiday as Pete Maravich in him. Either that or he’d have to be so good that he eclipsed Portland’s current roster as a leader and savior for the future. It’s hard to trade for that kind of player, though.
Somewhere in the middle of all this you’ll find the reason that the Blazers aren’t mentioned as suitors for high-profile point guards despite having contracts, younger players, and draft capital to make a deal work. It’s not just a matter of obtaining talent. They’ll need to strike a balance that requires finesse on the market, not just brute strength.
I’m guessing Blazers fans would get excited if Portland traded for a big-name point guard. They have to play the long game, though. Looking good isn’t enough. The Blazers need to be good. They’d be better off with the next Josh Giddey than the current (or next) Ja Morant. If that’s not available, a trade probably isn’t worth it.
Thanks for the question! You can always send yours to blazersub@gmail.com and we’ll try to answer as many as possible!
