The Portland Trail Blazers’ second-most expensive player, 30-year-old Jerami Grant, hasn’t made sense as a current roster addition in years.
A versatile 3- and 4-position wing, the 6-foot-10 Syracuse product is a win-now player stuck on a lose-now team. It’s not clear, however, that Grant is in much of a rush to be traded. After all, he left the Denver Nuggets, where he was a better shooter and worse defender than Aaron Gordon, to join the perpetually bad Detroit Pistons as a free agent in 2020.
With the NBA now having agreed to a lucrative new television rights deal worth an estimated $76 billion, the $29.8 million Grant is owed next season (plus the four years and $132.4 million he’s set to earn over the remainder of his contract) is no longer the albatross salary it appeared to be when he initially agreed to it last year.
Where should Grant be traded? There is one destination, incredibly obvious, that has long been floated as a possibility.
Antonio Kozlow of Basketball Insiders goes into detail with a specific proposal to send Grant to his long-awaited destination, the Los Angeles Lakers.
In the deal Kozlow suggests, the Lakers would part ways with point guard D’Angelo Russell, whose $18.7 million contract is expiring, combo forward Jarred Vanderbilt, 2023 second-round draft pick Maxwell Lewis of Pepperdine, and a 2029 first-round pick. That would at least allow LA to retain one of its two future mobile first-rounders. Vanderbilt missed much of the 2023-24 season due to injury issues and is pretty useless in the playoffs because he’s such a negative offensively. Russell is another positive from the regular season and negative from the playoffs. Lewis hasn’t cracked LA’s rotation, but is at least a low-cost prospect. The real prize is the draft pick.
With Grant, the Lakers would benefit from a major upgrade in their perimeter defense, while also strengthening their 3-point shooting.
“Jerami Grant’s contract, while hefty, might make more sense in a different context, such as the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers, with an aging LeBron James still playing at an MVP level, need to capitalize on their championship window. Grant, known for his defensive versatility and improving [3-point] “Shooting could fit in as an ideal third or fourth option behind LeBron and Anthony Davis,” Kozlow writes.
Kozlow argues that the Blazers could eventually sell Russell’s contract. If he remains on the roster, Portland would have solid salary cap space in 2025. Vanderbilt, 25, could potentially grow even further with Portland’s youth movement.
This is a deal that could benefit both sides. So why hasn’t it happened yet? It’s likely that the two sides are still negotiating over exactly how much of a draft pick the Lakers would give up. LA would also be short a starting point guard, and it’s unclear how much they can count on Gabe Vincent after he had a bit of a lost season in his first season with the team.
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