Jerami Grant

Um, I think they made some, some efforts at some other players.

But they never really fully addressed the power forward situation after they traded, uh, Jerami Grant to Memphis.

Jason, I'll let you out on this one.

We know these two teams finished right beside each other in the standings last year.

Yeah.

Um, and but I will throw in the caveat also, I think Cason Wallace and Jerami Grant, um, I think that between the two of them, they score 35 points themselves.

Okay.

So I'll throw that in there.

But also we have Jalen Williams.

We have AJ Mitchell.

We have Jerami Grant.

We have Cason Wallace.

Why did the Trail Blazers trade for Ja Morant, Dan?

I think just because it cost them Jerami Grant and Kris Murray.

It's the high upside play, right? I don't think any reasonable mind looked at the roster and thought Ja Morant is instantly a terrific fit.

It's, if this pans out, maybe we've stumbled onto something, or if he plays really well, is this an asset that we can then flip for additional value? It's probably not hard.

Jerami Grant was pretty valuable to this team over the years, but in a vacuum, it probably wouldn't be that difficult to beat a return of Jerami Grant and Kris Murray if you're able to re-trade Ja Morant at, at what won't be the nadir of his value, I would say.

Right.

Yeah, b- yeah, at, at very least, it seems like you could be neutral on the back half of that transaction if you were, uh, needing to acquire, um, like a fringy NBA player and a bad contract.

I do think you, [laughs] I do think you could probably pull that off.

You can't play that many guards, not have enough forwards.

What I say to that is we just added two former All-Stars to a roster that made the NBA playoffs, and the only major changes are we lost Jerami Grant and Kris Murray.

Granted, we lost Shaden Sharp to the injury once again here.

But shouldn't that be an addition and not a subtraction? We also took an interim coach in Tiago Splitter, who did a, a really stand-up job for the Blazers last year under difficult conditions.

He's been put in interesting situations, and he's the first coach I can remember in a long time who...

A first, first-time coach, excuse me, uh, I remember in a long time, taking over a playoff team, a team that's already been there, a team that didn't really lose anybody.

Uh, you know, Jerami Grant was a fine player, good outside shooter, but a team that really didn't lose too much and, in fact, is adding a future NBA Hall of Fame point guard in Damian Lillard and somebody in Ja Morant who has been a top player in the NBA when he is right.

Now, will we see the full version of those guys? We'll talk about that here in a bit.

What's wrong? I think the Portland Trail Blazers with their million-dollar coach, and not million-dollar like he's great, million-dollar like they're cheap, that's all they gonna pay him.

I think the, the Portland Trail Blazers will be good, and I think that's gonna surprise a lot of people with the addition of Ja Morant, the return of Dame Lillard, the rise, uh, uh, of Anfernee Haverdick, uh, Donovan Clingan, uh, Jerami Grant, uh, uh, uh, um, [smacks lips] uh, who's this other, who's this other kid? That, I'm not...

I'm sorry.

R- uh, Drew Holiday.