Trail Blazers Options with the No. 11 Pick in the NBA Draft: Make the Pick, Trade Back or Trade Out!

Trail Blazers Options with the No. 11 Pick in the NBA Draft: Make the Pick, Trade Back or Trade Out!

In today’s show, we talk about the Trailblazers options with the number 11 pick in the NBA draft. Should they just make the pick, trade back, trade out of the draft entirely? Welcome to Locked On Blazers. Let’s get into [Music] 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 pass first point guard and trailblazers reporter Mike Richmond. You’re listening to another episode of Locked on Blazers, part of the 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 your first listen. Tell your friends to do the same. It’s locked on Blazers, your team every day. In today’s program, we’re going to talk about the Trailblazers options with the number 11 pick in the NBA draft. And instead of in like in previous episodes where we’ve talked about targets, like folks, players who the Blazers could potentially draft and how they would help the team with a late lottery pick, today we’re going to talk about the Blazers other options. Uh the way I see it, there’s really three of them. They could just make the pick. They could trade back because there’s multiple there’s some teams with multiple first round picks would allow the Blazers to get two picks in the first round and that other team would be able to move up. or they could trade out entirely, adding some, you know, like veteran help and kind of accelerating their competitive window rather quickly. I’m not going to talk, you know, obviously there’s another one. They could trade up in the draft. That’s that’s the that’s that’s the other option. Those are your those are your four choices. Stand still, trade back, trade out, trade up. I don’t think trading up is very realistic, so I’m not going to touch on it here. We’ll start in this segment talking about just making the pick and why that that might be the approach. Uh, real quick on why I’m not going to talk about trading up. If you just look at like what they have to trade because they owe a future pick to the Chicago Bulls, it’s not like they have this surplus of extra picks or even really any of their own tradable picks at this stage. Um, even if they were to trade the 11th pick, it would technically have to be something that goes that goes into effect after the draft because of the way the Steppian rule works. They could agree to it beforehand, but it would be completed after the after the draft is made um or after the draft selections are made. So, and like it’s not like the Blazers have, you know, unless they wanted to trade one of the young sort of young recent lottery picks in and Klingan or or Sharp or or Henderson, that’s Donovan Klingan, Shaden Sharp, Scoot Henderson, they’re pretty unlikely to be able to move up in this particular draft. I just don’t think it’s realistic. Um, so 11 seems like the absolute highest pick you could you could reasonably get in this draft considering where the Blazers stand today in May of 2025, about a month out from the NBA draft. So, let’s start there. Why do you just make the pick? What’s the argument for doing it? Uh, I I obviously am going to present my own personal biases and personal preferences here, but I want to try to make the case for each one of these scenarios. So, here’s the case for making the pick. If you trust the idea that there is indeed a lot of talent, a lot of talent in the latter half of the lottery, this is your best chance to add that talent in the draft. That isn’t to say that there won’t be more talents and there’s always somebody who surprises in the in the you know in the in the second round or late first round like oh wow that they would have been really nice to add, right? if if you you know if you trust your scouting department and and this is like conceivably the highest you can go this is your best chance to to make decisions you know make your earliest decision in the draft to get the player you want. Um you know this is some of all of this reasoning is based on kind of your own general you dear listener your own general appetite for competitiveness. Um, I’m probably lean towards this, right? I probably lean towards like just make this pick because this is the way you end up with this is the way you end up with the best player or at least that the opportunity to get the best player. 11 doesn’t guarantee anything, but it is probably the earliest like I said the earliest you can make a decision. Um, and so like uh you know you this is your this is if this is the highest you can pick in the in the draft, it’s probably the highest likelihood of adding a quality rookie. For me, I recognize that adding a rookie to this particular Blazer roster probably doesn’t accelerate them any further in the grand scheme of the of the competitive Western Conference. My opinion going forward for the Blazers is is is not that like they don’t need to tank. I’m not they don’t need to lose on purpose and fake injuries and all of that stuff. Um they don’t they don’t need to try to lose, but they should make decisions based on the idea that they’re trying to build a sustainable winner into the future. not a team that makes the playin in the spring of 2026 first and foremost. Um, if they do happen to be a team that makes the playin in the spring of 2026, cool. Like whatever. Cool. That’s good job. Like you won enough games in the Western Conference to to qualify for that. Good work. Like the point of basketball is to win games. But what I’m saying is that the making the playin or even making the playoffs, right? If you really want to get if you really want to get aggressive with your hopes, whatever playing postseason basketball should be the result of the decisions you make, not the driving force that informs roster decisions this summer. What I mean by that is you add the 11th pick in the draft, like let’s let’s just like throw a let’s throw a name out there. Um Derek Queen, right? Like I don’t even know if I like Derrick Queen on this particular roster, but certainly he’s been someone who’s kind of mocked in the Blazers range. Kapar Kasparus Yakonis, right? whoever, whoever might be, you add that player, the chance that that player helps you win more basketball games this year is relatively low, right? Cuz most rookies are bad and they don’t contribute to winning. Even if they’re going to be good into the future, their immediate help in terms of um in terms of helping you win games is is is usually pretty low, right? They usually have relatively limited impact on teams winning in their first season. good players can be really impactful um in in their second season as early second season and you know and some some young players are like straight up stars by year three but but just like a general safe bet the 11th pick in the draft is probably not going to help you win too many games and I’m okay with that because my personal vision is like this is your best highest chance to add a good talented player. you’re going to have that player under contract for four years. And the idea is that you’re trusting the scouting department, trusting, you know, trusting the the sort of the process of of what you have been to say, we’re going to get this pick right and this player is going to be on the team for four years and we’re going to control their contractual rights such that if we want them to be on the team for nine seasons, we can, and they’re going to help us over the course of like a four to sixyear window. Obviously, you got to you got to bake in some bake in some uh some some wackiness there, but they’re going to help you like in a four to six year window more so than than than some other options would be. So, the case for making the pick is this is the highest you’re going to get in the draft. This team is relatively far away from being like consistently highle competitive. And what you got to do is you got to stack talent. and stacking cheap talent is the best path for almost every team in order to in order to make um in order to make progress is like the the the sort of market inefficiency is having a player who’s really really good on a rookie contract. That that’s you know a deeply underpaid star. Not that 11 is guaranteed to be a star, but that is the path to do it. The case for making the pick is that this is your best bet in terms of a maybe a longer tale vision. But again, your appetite may vary. We’ll talk about that later in the show. But what I want to talk about in the second segment is another scenario in which the Blazers say, “We don’t want to add one rookie to this roster. We feel like we can add multiple.” And there are teams that would help us that could facilitate us adding multiple rookies because their goals are different from the Portland Trailblazers goals. Let’s talk about that in the second segment. What does trading back look like for the Blazers? Join me there. First though, let’s talk all about FanDuel. It’s basketball season. You made it. You made it to the playoffs and FanDuel wants to help you get in on the action every night. Um, you know, whether you’re you’re just watching uh watching your favorite team or watching the biggest games because your favorite team has already gone home, FanDuel makes it easy to stay in the game before tip off and live once the game starts with player props, performance trends, and same game parlays. Fans have more ways than ever to play smart and win big. So, you can combine live prop bets midame based on how the action unfolds. Say you’re watching the game and say like, I bet Anthony Edwards is going to hit two more threes in the second half. I bet Nazri is going to grab a rebound or at least four more rebounds and I bets uh Jaylen Williams Arkansas is going to come off the bench to to block a shot. You can combine all those single player prop bets into a live same game same game parlay after the game is even started. Plus, you can also just bet pregame with your classic sort of your money lines, your spreads, and all of that. And all of those things could lead you to get $200 in bonus bets to add to the excitement. All you got to do is have your first $5 bet hit. If you are new to FanDuel, this is the perfect time to sign up. You can head to fanduel.com and place your first $5 bet. If it wins, you’ll get $200 in bonus bets. Make every moment more with FanDuel, an official sports betting partner of the [Music] NBA. All right, so we talked about the Blazers potentially just making the pick, right? And I think to me where I stand now and you’re listening to May 22nd show to to me make the pick. To me make the pick. But there are indeed other options including the following one. The tradeback option. I think the tradeback option is pretty interesting for a couple reasons. First the tradeback option is interesting because you get two picks. And two picks is pretty interesting. Um it’s an intriguing way to to add talent. Um particularly if you you know like you’re playing the board, right? Uh it’s it’s draft night. You’ve got you’ve called some teams and we’ll mention some options here in a second, but you’ve called some teams and you say we have a tier of nine guys. We don’t think eight of them will be available, but if number nine slips down to to our slot at 11, we feel pretty good. And after those nine, then we have another tier of players. And we we’re really comfortable with this tier of players. Um, and we feel like we can, you know, we can make these picks later on. We’ve got another we’ve got another set of say like seven players in tier two or whatever tier it is. Say say the fourth tier u by that point like that will be available in the teens. So you’re say, okay, pick eight. Okay, that’s that’s eight of our first nine that we thought were going to be off the board. If if this guy goes nine or 10, we’re making the call. Bang. whoever it is, let’s say, uh, I don’t know, Yay! Gordamin, oops, he he jumped early. He’s the ninth pick in the NBA draft. Okay, all nine of our tier tier one and two guys are off the board. Let’s make a call. And this this gives the Blazers a chance to, you know, maybe get their player a little later in the draft and add another pick. And there’s some options here with teams that have multiple firsts and are relatively competitive. First and first and foremost, Oklahoma City. the Oklahoma City probably has to do something like this in every draft forever just because they have too many picks, right? They just have too many draft picks. So, them like going into drafts targeting a guy and making a consolidation trade and trading multiple firsts for one first seems like something that they will probably repeat the process on a couple times over if not trading out themselves. But like and and Oklahoma City comes into this draft with 15 and 24. Um, you know, they might win the championship. like they they they probably don’t like desperately need a rookie. But if you have 15 and 24, you have to do something with those picks one way or another. And adding cheap talent to a roster that eventually will get very expensive when they have to pay their guys is the path, right? It allows them to cycle in youngsters. And this would give them a chance to move up. So the Blazers, they say you can have 11. We’ll take 15 and 24. Um you know, if the I don’t know if the if the OKC thinks that’s too rich, the Blazers could throw in a future second or whatever it is, but let’s just call it 11 for 15 and 24. Now the Blazers move back four spots for their trouble. They get into the back half of the second round for the for the OKC. You know, someone they really like is on the board and they get to like move up and and make that play and the Blazers say, “Okay, all of a sudden now we can add, you know, Cedric Coward and Nick Clifford at 15 and 24 and we’re in um and we’re in a better spot. Like we we we like this situation.” To be clear for Portland. Um if they were to add two rookies, the Blazers do not have a second round pick in this draft. They’re add two rookies. You’re pretty much conceding that Delano Banton and Jabari Walker are gone. I think Banton’s almost certainly gone anyways. It’s just because of um his talent level in his contract situation. Um Walker will be restricted free agent, so the Blazers have some uh wiggle room to keep him if they want. Although I believe his qualifying offer is more than a minimum contract, so I can’t imagine that they make him restricted. I mean, I can imagine it, I guess, but it seems relatively unlikely to me. But I think like you’re saying, okay, 15 and 24 are just going to replace some guys, some some guys in the back half of a roster. Obviously, the Blazers could make any number of other trades to clear roster spots for those players. You can draft those guys and have their draft rights and then figure it out. You’re allowed to carry a larger roster in in through in deep into the summer. I believe you can carry up to 20 players. I might even be 21 now with with uh two ways. Like it’s it so like you you would eventually have to make a decision, but you might not have to make a decision on draft night. OKC is a target for for trade back. Orlando is a target for tradeback. Orlando’s got 16 and 25. I think they’re an intriguing one because Orlando’s like pretty good, right? They they fancy themselves when they were healthy at the beginning of the year. There’s a moment like, oh, they’re going to be a homecourt advantage team in the East and because of, you know, like the uncertainty of what’s going to happen with Milwaukee because of Jason Tatum’s injury in Boston. There is space in that upper half of the East bracket for a team like Orlando if Palancho can stay healthy and kind of um get back on track. I think to me kind of had a down year and France Vagner can continue to rise. I think he had a down year the year ago and then he was pretty darn good this year again but with some health stuff and if you know other health things Mo Vagner Jayen Suggs all that if Orlando could stay healthy they could probably talk themselves pretty quickly into being you know I don’t know the third seed in the East and they might not h have appetite as a team that’s third seed in the East to add two rookies. They might say like, “We really like someone at 11. We can add like uh we can like draft for need at 11 and we can cash in 16 and 25.” I think for the Blazers 16 and 25 sounds sounds money. I mean, I just pitched you on 15 and 24, but 16 and 25 is is interesting. The other team to look at here in a tradeback scenario is Brooklyn. Um Brooklyn has four, but um four firsts, which is outrageous. Um they have 19, 26, and 27. The Nets could conceivably add four rookies. I don’t think that’s out of the question um that they make all of their picks um you know one in the lottery and then and then 19 26 and 27 but but certainly they might have an appetite to say like okay how about 19 and 26 um for 11 uh that is dropping back eight spots that’s kind of aggressive um based on the Kevin Pelton uh uh draft pick value calculator 19 and 26 for 11 is pretty even it’s pretty fair um shout out to shout out to KP but it is I would say that that is certainly worse than the other two OKC in Orlando and Brooklyn’s motivation because they’re not a particularly good team. They’re not a team that’s going to be able to talk themselves into uh finishing third unless they like get Giannis Hazakmpo, but like um they’re not they’re not a likely to be a playoff team in the East, although the East bad and Brooklyn was kind of competitive for a chunk of this season, but you know, they might have they might say like yeah, three three rookies is enough. Um, I don’t think you’re going to trade 11 for three picks in the first, but anything is possible. So, that’s another option. That’s your trade back. Just make the pick, trade back. And then the final one I want to talk about to close the show. There’s a world where the Blazers just trade out. They say, “We want to be good. We we’re we’re going to hit the gas a little bit and try to be competitive and and make a push to be like um to be better earlier.” And that’s what a tradeout tradeout option would look like. Let’s talk about what that looked like. And I’ll even I even cooked up some fake trades because I love y’all and it’s fake trade season. Join me in the third segment, won’t [Music] you? Still a pass first point guard. Still Mike Rich. Still listen to locks on Blazers. What does a tradeback scenario look? Excuse me. Trade out scenario. We talked trade back. Uh that’s, you know, trading from 11 back to a couple other picks in the first round. That that one’s pretty intriguing depending on the sort of the appetite for other teams. Just making the pick is, you know, do you draft the highest? But the other option would be to um trade out of the trade out entirely. And this looks something like adding young veteran or veteran talent. I think people are weird about the word veteran. Once you’ve once you’re off your your your second contract uh or off your first contract, you’re a veteran in the league. Um I would even argue once you’ve played a couple years in the league, you’re a young veteran in the league. Uh, but trading out, so like adding an NBA player to the roster as opposed to a rookie. To me, let me be clear, this is the least appealing, but it’s all about appetite. If your personal preference as the way you like want to root for the Trailblazers is to maximize competitiveness in 25 26, there’s probably an avenue where trading out of the draft entirely and adding veteran help accelerates their ability to be competitive right away. Because again, a player with NBA experience is so much more likely to be helpful than the number 11 pick in the draft if you are trying to win games in the fall of 2025 and beyond. Like if you are if you’re viewing sort of a longer tale, if you’re saying big big picture, yeah, like I think it’s hard to argue that you would that you you want to get out of the lottery, right? considering the Blazers picture Blazers position. But if your preference is to be better faster, certainly a rookie is less likely to do that than than some players with NBA experience. So what does a trade a trade out look like? I think there’s a couple ways that this could go down. One is like um targeting teams with uh some salary concerns and seeing kind of what you know what teams that are going to be up against it tax- wise or up against it with a tax apron. What’s their appetite for saying like could you take on some money for us and we’ll give you um and and we’ll you know we’ll take 11 and uh and like but we’ll give you like talented players. We’ll give you like you can have good players if you like give us relieve some of our tax burden and we’ll like kind of figure it out going forward. So, it’s like, you know, Boston could be in that position. Cleveland could be in that position. Phoenix doesn’t have any good players on the team, but they could be in that position. They do. They have two really good ones. Uh, and then not a lot else, but like I don’t see them as obvious targets necessarily. Um, I’m having trouble cooking up you, dear listener, I challenge you. Don’t send it to me, but send it to one of your friends. A fake trade with 11 in one of those teams. So then I’m looking at like, okay, what about teams that are maybe motivated to be kind of competitive but have are have expensive rosters and don’t have draft picks. So like the are are the Kings an option? I don’t look at the Kings roster with the 11th pick in the draft and say, “Yeah, that’s that’s that’ll do it, right?” Like I’m not a big Damonte Sabonis believer. Um, but maybe if you are something something that that pairs with pairs, you know, DeAndre and the 11th pick to Sacramento, but like to me like what does that even do for the Kings? Like I don’t what’s that path for them exactly? And and do they feel that that’s not enough and then you’re adding more capital and blah blah blah? I don’t see the Kings as for me not not necessarily a great one, but I think you could cook something up. So then I landed on the Grizzlies. Hm. The thing is the Grizzlies are kind of like ex have players that are like very expensive and then players on rookie deals mostly. So something like like 11 is really hard to to feel good about. But I here’s a fake trade that I don’t feel particularly good about. But I’ll throw this one out there for you. GI Jackson Huff two and two seconds 2025 and 2026 for Ryan Rupair and 11. I don’t like that deal, right? Because I don’t think GI Jackson on his own is the 11th pick in the draft. He was a pretty darn good rookie. Um, got hurt and and you know and and didn’t play in in year two. He’s super young. So, you’re basically saying like he’s 20 years old. We think GG Jackson at 20 is better than a player we could take with 11. And then you get an interesting backup big with Jay Huff and then Ryan Rupair makes the money work and you get two seconds to add rookies down the line. I don’t love that. I I probably don’t even like it. But I think like that’s kind of like ballparky with something like that because, you know, you’re not gonna I don’t like I don’t think you’re gonna get Desmond Bane for 11, right? You gota be you got to be real realistic about what other teams goals are and the Grizzlies goals are not so like be bad. Um they they would want value and then you have to cook up like what do the Blazers have to give away, etc., etc. Ah Simons and 11 for Desmond Bane. Does that do it for him? You know, it’s hard it’s hard to see a world in which Jarant and Afrey Simons is a viable back court. Um, so I don’t love that one, right? And then so I’m like, well, okay. Uh, you know, the expensive teams, I don’t see what 11 does for them in terms of what they have to trade for the Blazers. Teams without picks, Sacramento and the Grizzlies, I I don’t I don’t love them. Like packages, I you could talk yourself into GI Jackson if you’re a believer, but that seems really steep for what he is and what he’s been. So then I came back to the Nets and here is an idea to accelerate the Blazers chances of winning. Again, me personally, doesn’t really appeal to me, but I think this is sort of like in the realistic range for what it looks like if you wanted to hit the gas a little bit and try to get add like multiple veteran players. DeAndre and Matis Styel to the Brooklyn Nets in with along with 11 exchange for Cam Johnson, Nick Claxton and in this scenario you have to trade quote unquote have to trade out but I was thinking it’s like because I wanted to build a trade out deal but it’s like they have four first. So maybe they give you 20 27 or something and then you also flip 27 into the future. But let’s let’s just let’s just say that it’s um that it’s a trade out and they give you a future first, right? I will say the Nets give you a future first just for the exercise, right? Um so Aton Thyel and 11 to Brooklyn for Cam Johnson and Nick Claxton. Cam Johnson is a functional forward who be had some shooting and some he’s he’s been a up and down defender over his career but at times a a pretty competent one. and Nick Claxton, who I think probably didn’t have a year that made him super appealing at his price tag, but has some has in the past been been a interesting kind of like big that offers rim protection and a little bit of perimeter switchability. You get off the final year of DeAndre Aiden’s contract. It’s like you you kind of get in in terms of like what do we do with DeAndre Aiden? This is what you do with him. You turn him into Nick Claxton and Thiable who is also an expiring contract. this, you know, instead of um you kind of you you kind of make the decision that that Thyel is not part of the long-term plan, which seems relatively reasonable in and of itself. Is this an awesome trade? No. But this seems like a reasonable one for hitting the gas a little bit because you do get NBA talent. You do still have like um you know, you don’t you don’t deplete your front line because of Claxton. You add to your wing core and add shooting immediately dress a need with Cam Johnson and you’re probably more competitive. Are you like the seventh best team in the west with that trade? No. Probably not. But I do think you are if you if you wanted to maximize your chances of being more competitive in October and November of 2025, a trade like that absolutely gets you there. And we’re assuming like in this tradeout scenario that they don’t give you 27, but they give you a future first down the line that that that the Nets have. Um maybe we’ll call it top top eight protected or something. top 10 protected into the future. Say 2027 pick. I don’t know. Um I’m just making it up for the for the exercise here. Something like that would be a trade out. Those are Blazers options. To me, you make the pick. But I think there are different ways to go about this. And I hope that doing this exercise, the make the pick, tradeback, or trade out scenarios kind of walked you through what those would potentially look like. Um, if you do have a trade idea and you’re listening on YouTube, you can drop it in the comments. If you do have a trade idea, you can always email me locked on [email protected]. I will ignore it. Uh, that’s going to do it for today’s show. Tomorrow’s show, uh, we’re going to do some more player previews, talk Jabari Walker, and Chris Murray. Plus, if any other news should happen, I’ve got my eyeballs out looking for those all defense teams. We may be talking to Marty Kamara. Uh, let’s let’s we will do that in tomorrow’s program. Come back and join me for that one. And that’s what we do 5 days a week, wherever you get podcasts and also on YouTube. I appreciate you listening. I’ll talk to you soon.

Assessing the Trail Blazers options for the No. 11 pick in the 2025 NBA draft.

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