Does Deandre Ayton Fit with the Portland Trail Blazers Future Plans? | 2024-25 Season Review

Does Deandre Ayton Fit with the Portland Trail Blazers Future Plans? | 2024-25 Season Review

In today’s show, we continue our season review series. Today’s topic, all things DeAndre Aton. We’ll look back what he did in his second season in Portland and look ahead and find out what’s next and where DA fits into the Trailblazers future. Welcome to Locked on Blazers. Let’s get into it. You are Locked On Trailblazers, your daily Portland Trailblazers podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. What’s up, world? It’s your past first point guard and Trailblazers reporter Mike Richmond. You are listening to another episode of Locked on Blazers for Locked on Podcast Network, available wherever you get podcasts and also on YouTube. Thanks for making this show your first listen. coming at you each and every weekday, Monday through Friday. So, make it a part of your daily routine. Make it your first list. Tell your friends to do the same. It’s locked on Blazers, your team every day. In today’s show, we continue our season review series where we’re running through every player on the roster and looking back at what they did during the 2425 season and then looking ahead to what they’re going to bring if they’re going to bring it to the team next season. Uh we’ll talk what they did, do a quick season review, we’ll visit with Michael from the past, talk best and worst case scenarios. Uh and then when we’ll spin it forward today’s we’re spinning it forward with DeAndre Aton talking about the Blazers big man in the middle. Uh and we’ll talk about where DA what DA did this year and where he fits going forward as he enters the final year of his contract. There are some questions about how, why, what is going on with uh DeAndre Aiden’s future. But before we look ahead, let’s look back. What DeAndre Aiden do in his second season in Portland? He averaged 14.4 points, 10.2 boards, 1.6 assist to go along with just under a steel a game at 08 and 1.0 blocks, shot 56.6% from the floor, uh 18.8% from the free throw line and 66.7% from the free throw line. Um he averaged 32 minutes a night. He started every game he appeared in. he just missed a big chunk at the end of the season, the final 18 games of the year. Availability was a big deal for Aiden yet again in his second season. Um it wasn’t it wasn’t a mirror image of of his first year. I I I think that would be overstating it, but it was relatively similar. Overall, his efficiency in the end was actually a tad worse than his rook than his rookie uh than his first season in Portland. like his true shooting percentage dipped a little bit and his points per shot attempt, which is a stat that cleaned the glass tracks um was actually a little bit lower, but like arguably the same. Um a lot of that efficiency dip was because he had a weird down year from the free throw line. Like he’s a good free throw shooter generally speaking, like a mid mid70s and his had some years in the 80s. Um but he’s 40 of 60 from the free throw line. Last year he only took 79 in 55 games. This year he took 60 and and in 40 games he actually upped his free throw rate a little bit. Although uh last year was the worst free throw rate of his career. This year second worst. Um so so he still not back at levels that he had been at a certain point of his career. But 40 of 60th free throw line that’s that’s make a third of his threes like or third of his free throws rather. That that hurt his efficiency a little bit as like is an uncharacteristic downyear for him. Um he took threes, not a lot, but certainly more than he had. Uh he finished a a clean uh he took 32 threes uh which was a careerhigh. He he besting for 24 he took back in the 2022 2023 season. He took 32 threes. He made six of them. 32 across 40 games. He’s not even taking one a game. It didn’t become this like big part of his arsenal, which I think some folks were hoping that it might. Um, you know, you’re talking about a jump for a guy like as deep into his career as he is. It’s just like it’s pretty unlikely that he becomes like a five three-pointer a game type of guy. Although he does have good touch from 19 ft. It’s just is that would be very rare. It would be his an historic leap uh for Aiden. Weirdly, he was one of 16 on corner threes. I thought that would be his bread and butter. Like not bread and butter, excuse me. I thought that would be the place where he was effective as a shooter because I thought they could park him in the corner first because that’s like the weak side corner. or even the strong side corner with with a center is probably the best place to hide him. It it does keep the center as the low man, but those centers are much more likely to to help in and like give you some give you some shots. Um, you know, he’s going to pick and pop, so he’s going to take some above the break threes, but I thought it’s like an offball spacer type. The corner would be a spot. One of 16 on corner threes. Obviously, a tiny little sample size, so they just didn’t go in. Um, like I mentioned, he he took he took 32 across 40 games. For context, he took 94 two-pointers between 14 feet and the three and the free throw, excuse me, and the three-point line. So, from 14 feet out, those are long mid-rangers as tracked by cleaning the glass. He took basically three times as many of those long midies as he did um as he did threes. That’s his shot. That’s his comfort shot. He shot about 45% on those on on on long midies. Um, you know, that’s that’s not a diet that that is not an efficient enough diet to make that something you really really do. you’d have to shoot about 28% from three to match that 44% 45%ish on on long twos. I do think there’s a world in which DeAndre Aiden can become a 30% three-point shooter, but he wasn’t. The rest of his story this year was kind of about injuries. Like I mentioned, he had this slow start, and some of that slow start was he had a deep bruise on his right index finger in November that caused him to miss seven games. And couple that with just like not playing great to begin the season. Um his his first stretch was pretty rough quite frankly through December 31st he averaged 14.7 points and 10.4 boards. Um but he was averaging you know more turnovers than assists at 1.8 game turnovers just one and a half assists 1.4 assists. Um and and the BL and that that was across 23 games. The Blazers were one of the worst defenses in the league during those during that stretch of the season. So it wasn’t like he was helping them on the other end. They were one of the five worst defenses in the league pretty much the entire time during that stretch. Um you know 15 and 10 is not awful but Aiden’s value was going to come as a score for the most part and he just wasn’t doing that. Um that that stretch to begin the season included an infamous benching in the second half of a 42-point home loss to the Jazz which Shanty Phillips said he did like did not like DeAndre Aiden’s spirit. Yikes. And after the way he started his first season in Portland to start his second season like this as well was like a little bit troubling. And then once he got going, he really got going and then it ended. He was good. Like legitimately good from January 19th, which is basically when the Blazer season started to to look competent. That’s game 42 of the year. They win that game. They rip off 10 of 11. DeAndre Aton actually misses uh three of those 11 games with a with a back injury, but um he he appeared in eight of those games during that stretch from January 19th to February 6 where the Blazers uh won 10 of 11 games. During that stretch, he averaged 19.4 points, 11.2 uh rebounds, 2.4 assists, which basically nearly doubled his assists for the rest of the year, a steal, and a block. Five of his 20 point five of his nine 20point games happened during that eightgame stretch all year long. in in DeAndre’s 40 appearances, he he cracked the the the 20 point mark nine total times. Nine times across 40 games, five of them happened during an eightgame stretch in in in late January to early February. That included a 24 rebound game against the Suns in overtime. He backs back really nice games against the Suns, his former team. He also had some stinkers against them in December. Maybe it was just uh later in the season. Maybe it was just he got rolling. But that was the Blazers best stretch. They turned into a, you know, obviously they’re beating up on a soft schedule, but they were they were a very, very good defensive team during that stretch. They were handling bad teams and Aton was playing his best basketball. Then he kind of had a stinker against Minnesota right before the All-Star break. And then the the penultimate game before the All-Star break, the Blazers were playing in Denver and DeAndre and hurt his left calf. a non-cont injury when he was going up for a rebound. Kind of like um you know went to load up off the off that left leg to go up for a rebound and just didn’t jump and it was very clear he was hurt in a in a way that was like bad news and he would miss the final 18 games of the season. That was on February 10th. Um at the time the Blazers gave him a uh you know he’d be re-evaluated in four weeks. They never gave us a medical update. You know a month later would have been the middle of March. He missed the month beyond that middle of March. um not un not surprisingly to anyone who follows the the the team or the situation. There wouldn’t have been much real reason to rush him back for the final eight games of the season except that they were sort of kind of chasing the play in, right? So maybe um you could argue that there was, but it always felt like his season was in jeopardy when he got hurt and then they just think, you know, he was it was never really in in a in a space where he was it was real that he was going to come back. So, all told, Aton struggled over his first 23 games, struggled with health and struggled with and and just was in pretty pretty um you know, not playing his best basketball by any means. He was he was back to having one of his worst years of his career. Um similar to how he’d started his first year in Portland and then he got rolling right when the team got rolling. He was an incredibly important cog during that stretch. He’s playing north of 30 minutes a night. He was hooping. They were that that was when the season changed and Aiden was a big catalyst for that change. and then he got hurt and then they kind of kept on keeping on, right? They struggled against some good teams down the stretch. They but they they continue to handle and take care of business against bad teams, but Aiden didn’t play and now he heads into a summer where he is in the final year of his contract. Uh there was an emergence of the Blazers young, you know, lottery pick, rookie center behind him. Um and it it doesn’t mean that Aiden’s got to go. He doesn’t they don’t need to kick him out the door, but it does add some uncertainty into his position. And before we look forward and to some sort of uncertainty, I want to look back in the second segment. We’ll visit from Michael from the past uh where I will play you my best and worst case scenarios that I set back in September. It’s a good way to sort of gauge what we thought going into the season was like reasonable expectations for DeAndre Aiden because I think those expectations before the game started help us color how we feel about the performance that actually happened. Join me in that second segment. We’ll look back and then we will start looking forward. Join me there. Before we get there though, I want to tell you that today’s program is brought to you by Upwork. Do you need help on a specific project, maybe just a shortterm goal that your team has, short-term project that your team wants to finish up? Well, Upwork can find specialized freelancers, marketing, development, design, and more. Experts that are ready to help take your business to the next level. So Upwork is is super helpful if you just need that flexibility by connecting with top land top freelance talent across multiple industries whether that’s IT, AI, web development, marketing. 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Use that redemption code L K D O NA. That’s locked on NBA for $20 off. Download Game Time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price [Music] guaranteed. All right, let’s talk DeAndre Aiden. What I want to do in this particular program, uh, particular segment, I mean, is bring on Michael from the past. Uh, back in September, if you’re a new listener, I do my best and worst case scenarios. the best case scenario within reason, the worst case scenario without injury. It’s kind of setting the polls for each player based on what I think they’ll do this season. And I think it’s important to sort of revisit those. One, because it like hold me accountable for my takes, but also I think the way we thought about players before the season started helps us feel kind of color the way we feel about them when the season ends. So, let’s bring on Michael from the past and talk best and worst case scenarios for DeAndre Aton way back in September. Take it away, Michael from the past. So, what’s the best case scenario for DeAndre Aiden? I think it’s pretty simple. It’s that he’s the guy who finished the season. A guy who’s a pretty easy 20 and 10. Uh someone who really understands where his spots are going to be in the offense and you can go to and count on efficiently to score um to score efficiently from where he scores from and to put you 2010 money in the box score. The best case scenario for DeAndre Aton is that there’s no ramp up period. There’s no feeling out period. There’s no getting comfortable. And the best case scenario is that the Blazers, not only do they understand how to use him better after one season in the system, but his teammates understand him better and the just the straightup improvement of Scoot Henderson alone should offer another quality pick and roll partner to make DeAndre Aton the best version of himself. The best version of DeAndre is the guy who played in the final 29 games of the regular season for the Portland Trailblazers. But I do think there is a world in which the best case scenario is is is better than what we saw DeAndre be last year. There is a world in which he is takes plays more physical on defense, takes more efficient has a more efficient shot diet and becomes a better version of himself. That was a guy who averaged 20 and 10 on 58% shooting to close the end of last year. So what’s the worst case scenario? I don’t think it’s the DeAndre Aton that was around in December of 2023. I think that’s actually lower than the worst case scenario. I don’t think there’s a there’s a worst case scenario which you get a season of 13 and 10 DeAndre Aton. But I do think there is a worst case scenario that Aton with the reality that there are more mouths to feed in a young team that kind of wants to has a young players that want to take a step forward. And I think there is a the worst case scenario is mostly about DeAndre not h feeling comfort in his role. and because he doesn’t maybe feel comfort in his role and because his skill set is reliant on other players setting him up that he’s just worse and that worse carries over to some of his bad habits which are not playing with a motor. To me, the worst case scenario is more about is the best case scenario is more about being smarter about what you do and the worst case scenario is more about does does the mental side of a game do the soft skills of the game get in the way of what you do well? Thank you, Michael, from the past. So, it’s pretty hard to to argue that DeAndre got close to that best case scenario. He was not a 20 and 10 guy. There was not the hyperefficiency we saw. He was pretty similar to who he was last season, which is like a kind of a pretty serious yikes taken on the whole. He was very, very close to the worst case scenario. In fact, Michael from the past, I said right there that I didn’t think he would average 13 and 10. like I I thought that the that the worst case scenario was actually above that and maybe I was right. Right. He averaged 14 and 10 14.4 10.2. Um that’s pretty close. I think in terms of production, it’s hard to argue that Aiden’s pendulum didn’t swing towards the worst case scenario. But I think I was wrong in an important way. One of the ways that I said that this sort of the struggles would manifest was that DA would um like the soft stuff would hurt him, his position on the team, his the you know the pecking order, the number of shots, some stuff I cut out there cuz I edit those to get him down to not be a full 8 minute segment or whatever that I recorded back in September like that. that I mentioned it’s like you’re going to get more Scoot Henderson shots and you’re get more Shaden Sharp and more Denny Oavia and you’re going to get um you know just just like there’s going to be more mouse to feed on offense in general and like figuring out how that works and because Aiden is reliant on other players to like set up his shots, right? He’s not a shot creator. He’s a play finisher. Um I think that that’s just undeniable at this point in his career. He’s he’s just not going to be that. he he’s he’s reliance on on his teammates and if his teammates are going to get theirs or you know or he’s just getting a smaller slice of the pie. I thought that would bother him and I thought maybe by drafting a rookie center seventh overall and as Aiden realized, you know, like he’s clocks ticking. He was extension eligible since July of last year, right? And they drafted the a center seventh overall. And I I thought there was a world in which Aiden the soft stuff would get to Aiden, right? That the like and and maybe you could argue they did early, right? And that’s why that’s why it took him, you know, 25 games to get going last season. But I I think outwardly DeAndre Aton was a very very very good teammate. A very very good teammate. If he struggled this season, I wouldn’t point to the soft stuff. There was no outward anxiety about his position or place on the team or future. when when DeAndre Aiden spoke in public and the few times when I would see him in the locker room and just like kind of off the cuff, this wasn’t a guy pouting or just disappointed or frustrated. This was someone who had who like maintained pretty positive spirits um and was like a a kind of a rahrrah guy in a way that he I don’t think he was at all in his first scene with Blazers. And he was a freaking huge Donovan Klingan fan. He was as outwardly and vocally supportive of Donovan Klingan’s growth, of Donovan Klingan’s minutes, of Donovan Klingan’s success as anyone on the roster. Nobody celebrated DC like DA. So, while I do think DeAndre Aiden swung towards the worst case scenario, I don’t think he swung towards the worst case scenario for the reasons that I was worried about. I was that was a that’s that is a take I think that is a little bit I think it’s telling because I think there is a there is part of talking about DeAndre is you want to assign some meaning to the way he plays. Oh he doesn’t play hard because he’s all worried he only cares about these these things uh and he’s he’s he’s oh when he doesn’t get his shots he’s going to be a little baby blah blah blah blah. Maybe that is the case right? Maybe we saw that early but I would say that the things some of his struggles are more about basketball than they are about like being a human with these, you know, impossible to overcome human emotions that we all deal with, right? Um that doesn’t make him unique. I got those two. Um but like uh I think it is I think it’s notable that DeAndre while he ended up in the worst case scenario, he ended up there for reasons that I was for the reasons that I would have highlighted and said obviously this is why he’s going to have a bad year. I don’t think that I don’t I don’t read that as what happened. I read it as basketball stuff is what happened. Um he just never fit into the plan and then when he started to fit into the plan, he got hurt. So what do you do with DA? Talented offensive player, albeit one that has a very specific kind of niche thing that he does. He aces mid-range jumpers, right? um can be a pretty good defensive player, but probably hasn’t been a very good defensive player for for very long stretches, right? I don’t think we’ve seen like a like significantly good long stretches of good defense from DA. What do you do with him? Let’s talk about that. To close the show, this is a big big question mark for the Blazers. Not only this summer where the question mark gets highlighted and we will scream about it a bunch, but if they don’t make a decision, it gets even diceier. The way I see it, there are three choices. Let’s talk about those choices uh in that third segment. Join me there. 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I think you’d be hardressed to say now it would make sense to sign DeAndre Aiden to a contract extension. Unless he’s willing to take a significant pay cut. And if I’m DeAndre Aiden, why the heck would I be talking about pay cuts? I want to play my way into the money, baby. He’s entering the final year of his 25% max that he signed back in 2022. an offer sheet. He signed with the Indiana Pacers, eventually matched by the Suns, who had were no longer interested in being in the DeAndre Aiden business, but kind of backed themselves into being in the DeAndre Aiden business. And for their troubles, they got to wave Keon Johnson, wave Nazir Little, and trade Yousef Nerk and a couple picks for Nick Richards and also give up to Kamar. Whoops. Um, that was a four-year $133 million contract. Aiden’s entering the final year of his deal. 35 and a half million Hiller in this year and then he will enter unrestricted free agency so there won’t be no matching by some team holding you hostage in the summer of 20 2026. So the way I see it there are three options. The Blazers can resign DeAndre Aiden. Step one, I doubt he would take a serious pay cut. Like I think DeAndre Aiden making like $15 million a year is is awesome player. Like very useful, very useful and helpful. you’re just like you’re not beholdened to playing him 35 minutes because you’re not that invested in them. Blah blah blah. It’s like it just it changes the calculation. But if I’m DA and I’m making, you know, someone’s asking me to take a $20 million pay cut, it’s going to be a new employer. I’m certainly not going like it’s like, you know, if the team says, “Hey, here’s here’s the offer. It starts at the like the mid-level exception for $14.5 million.” like just I’ll just go from from my reasoning if a team wants to commit to you long term but part of that commitment is having you take like a more than 50% pay cut um kick rocks you can go get a 50% pay cut somewhere else right so I I I can’t see that happening maybe he wants to resign at the same level say like uh he won’t get a raise because like a max contract now like a 25% max now is like something like4ome million dollars right the the cap is the cap has risen a bunch He’s not going to get that, right? He’s not going to get back to the 25% max. He’s just not that player. Um, you pay guys for what they can be coming off the rookie deal. He’s not that. So, he’s going to he’s going to take a he’s not going to get a raise, but it’s it’s like, is he going to get good starter money, right? Is he going to get big-time starter money? And big-time starter money is in that like 20% of the cap. So, you’re talking about $30 million, right? like that’s that’s about what a starter is going to make in the modern NBA, which is wild to think about, but we’ll we’ll have to start talking percentage of the cap otherwise. Does it make sense for the Blazers to sign DeAndre Aton with as good as uh Donovan Klingan looked to like kind of a big money contract, a starter money coming up entering next season? I don’t think you can look at Donovan Klingan and think like, yeah, he’s definitely the dude and he’s ready for all this big minutes and stuff. I I think you could look at him and say he’s going to be a starter in the NBA. He’s already pretty good and he’s basically awful on offense. If he got just back to like normal below average on offense, boy, would he be a positively impactful player, but there is reason to have concern about a Giant person who’s 21 and hasn’t played big minutes in the NBA. You’re going to want depth behind Don Klingan regardless. Period. You’re going to want center depth behind him. Period. But Clling uh but signing DA wouldn’t be center depth behind him. It would be something like big money next to him and it would be big money next to him knowing that you know somewhere in the future down the line everything works out you’re going to have to pay and Abdia and Scoot and Shay and like right like is it doesn’t make sense. I don’t really I I’m having trouble seeing that one make sense but we’ll revisit that one in a moment. Step two is trade him. I don’t think at his price tag $35 and a half million dollars over the la last year and a half that Aiden was particularly tradable, right? Just because, you know, he wasn’t very good in his final season with the Suns and he was really struggled in his first season in Portland. He’s played just 95 of possible 164 games to uh to begin his his Blazers career. Like, you know, he missed he missed more than half the season this year. Availability has been a big deal for him and DA was honest about he wants to get healthy and play and prove to the Blazers that he can like stay on the court. That that that’s that’s meaningful to him. So like I don’t think he has been particularly tradable but as an expiring contract he becomes more tradable right but the best way to get value from expiring contracts is to take back bad money. Well, and by bad money, I mean like say someone else has a long-term contract that they you you know, multi-year deal and as opposed to one that expires in in the summer of 2026. They have one that either goes into the summer of 2027 or summer of 2028. And they say, “If you’ll take this contract, this multi-year deal off of our hands, we’ll pay you either with a young player or with a uh with with a with a draft pick to be to like sort of facilitate that, right? That’s the best way to maximize the value of expirings. Otherwise, expiring contracts typically don’t have value. public if you don’t want to trade them for that type of thing because the other team is taking on some risk that that player will enter unrestricted free agency and walk like they they won’t be able to keep them right true free agency that that Aiden would find himself obviously you’re trading for your bird rights and kind of what you end up trading for with expiring contracts is the right to pay the player that you that you’re trading for that doesn’t have a ton of appeal in and of itself but so I would say the best use of expirings doesn’t really fit the Blazers MO it has that’s not really how they’ve operated they’ve not been a take gone bad money and absorbed trade, absorbed draft assets. They haven’t valued draft assets. They’ve actually valued players, right? Like think about Rob Williams and Malcolm Brogden and Denny Odia and like they they they have not they have not valued expiring money. They have not valued contracts and trades. They’ve typically tried to find guys, right? That that has been their their MO. So, I don’t I don’t necessarily think trading while it could happen, I don’t think the the sort of maximum use of of Aiden’s trade value is the way that the front office has operated. Also, I think you could make a case that the Blazers are in this position where they’re going to have to pay too many money kamar in the summer of 2027 and eventually Denny Oavia and along with the young guards if they pop or whatever, but like um taking on bad money as they try to get good like they’re going to try to have more success. We’ll talk about whether they should try to get good and what that means in a future show. But like if as they’re trying to get better and they’re trying to like build and be competitive, the bad money is much more is is much more um prohibitive, much more painful than for teams that are like actively trying to be bad, right? That the like the cycle and the timing is not great for them to take on money. So that’s step two. The final option is let him walk. Those are the three choices. you resign him, you trade him, or you don’t do anything with him and you let him walk in free agency. I think there is a tendency for sort of the GM brain out here, and I’m I’m certainly a victim of this. Um I freaking do this show every day. Um where it’s like you have to you have to maximize every asset. You have to you can’t let I think there’s a world in which the trades aren’t particularly palatable for what the Blazers want to accomplish. and that letting DeAndre Aton walk in the summer of 2026, just like you get to the end of the season, give him a handshake and thank him for his services and let him go get a a job somewhere else, that could be the that could be potentially the most palatable way and maybe the most beneficial way to deal with Aiden’s future. And part of that is, let me revisit number one. The challenge with expirings, and this is true of Afrey Simons as well, is that you kind of, if you don’t make a deal, you can kind of back yourself into a position where you have you feel compelled to have to resign someone, right? Because you don’t want to lose the asset. I feel like that’s what happened with with Jeremy Grant. I do not think it had anything to do with with Damen Lillard. um people who think that I don’t think paid close attention to how it actually works, but um or at least the timeline of that particular event, but um like I think they backed themselves in a position where they didn’t want to lose quote unquote the asset. And I think you can get into a situation where you don’t want to lose DeAndre for nothing, so you end up resigning him. And backing yourself into a position where you resign Aton seems like the messiest of these things. I think it’s very unlikely to sign a contract extension this summer. just like why would he coming off the two years that he had from his point of view and also the Blazers point of view. Um but there is a world in which he where they don’t trade him and then you get into this let him walk resign period in free agency of 2026 and I think that’s messy because I don’t think it’ll take a huge pay cut but maybe you could work the you know work the market and say it isn’t out there for you. The money’s not out there for you. Come on back. Take our $18 million a year. Come on back. We’d love to have you. Um, we’ll we shall see how that how how that all plays out. The real truth is that and I’ll close here as I run a little bit long. Um, I think the Blazers did draft DeAndre’s replacement in Donovan Klingan. Part of it is when are they ready to admit that and commit to that and do all of those things and when is Donovan Klingan ready to seize that? It might not be this year. There’s a pretty good chance that DeAndre is still a lot better than than than Klingan. Although I think at the end of the year, Clling was pretty darn good. Um, so a lot better would be an overstatement, but certainly at the beginning of Cllingan’s rookie year, he was he was he struggled. Um, like even when DA was bad, he was better than him in in in the early part of the season, but I think I think Clling kind of found his way at the end of the year. And if and he builds on that, then it’s like when when do you commit? Because at some point you do, but even when you do, you still need that you still need another center. You still probably need one, if not two more viable centers. That is going to be valuable. The league is big. Like, you’re going to need center depth. Protecting the rim is incredibly important. Particularly if you’re going to play this pressure defense on the outside, having a rim protector behind that pressure defense is important. That’s how the whole thing’s going to work. So, I think the timing of I think they the Blazers have their center of the future, but the timing of when they make the center of the future, the center of the present, and how they handle that interim when he’s maybe not ready to be the center of the present, but is clearly, you know, oh, hey, look, Don Mcllen can play 24 minutes, but you still have another 24 minutes that you desperately need at center. How they handle that, I think, is fascinating. There’s a world in which DeAndre Aiden is is back and is a long-term part of the future. I think that is the least likely of the scenarios. But how they handle his shortterm, whether they trade in the summer, which I think is um in some ways should be a priority, but we’ll see. Um or they try to make that move at the trade deadline and maybe get some expiring, you know, get paid back for their for sending expiring contract for for a playoff run. We shall see. I think it’s an interesting run and hopefully the Aiden that has had, you know, brief spurts about 25 games his first season and eight games this season of being really good can you can have more of the really good because mostly we’ve seen kind of meh with some moments and meh with some moments is not a solution for anyone DA included. That is going to do it for today’s show. Tomorrow’s show uh will be the last one before the draft. Actually, we’ll have uh two more before the draft lottery. Who am I talking about? This on Monday night, Monday afternoon. Um we’ll talk draft workout. So, Blazers held one draft workout uh on Tuesday. They’re going to hold another one on Thursday. We’ll talk about those things and look ahead to some draft stuff. Uh as we enter the the final couple shows before the lottery. Um I appreciate you listening. Tell your friends about the program 5 days a week wherever you get podcasts. Um if you missed it yesterday, Oregon’s Secretary of State Tobias Reed was on the program. Go back and listen to that one. Also, tell your friends about that. Keep then keep telling some other friends. I appreciate you listening. I’ll talk to you soon.

Is Deandre Ayton a trade candidate or a long-term option at center that the Trail Blazers should re-sign? We look back to look forward with our Ayton 2024-25 Season Review.

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