The Portland Trail Blazers kicked off a full-scale retooling of their roster at the trade deadline. Damian Lillard remains in Portland, but several other Blazers were sent to new homes. This summer, the team intends to rebuild on the fly and get back into the playoffs next season.
One player who could aid in that postseason chase is Jerami Grant of the Detroit Pistons. Portland tried to trade for Grant at the trade deadline, but Detroit wanted more than Josh Hart and draft considerations for Grant at the time. It’s expected that that the Trail Blazers and Pistons will re-engage on trade talks this offseason.
Those discussions could start as soon as completing a trade around the 2022 NBA Draft. Portland holds a traded player exception that Grant’s current salary would fit into. However, once the league flips to 2022-23, Grant’s salary becomes too large to fit inside that TPE, which was created in the C.J. McCollum trade.
