Only two teams in the NBA last season called upon their go-to 5-man unit for more than 1,300 regular season minutes last season: Indiana Pacers and Portland Trail Blazers. Much like Indiana’s Big 5 and coach Frank Vogel’s reluctance to peel them off the hardwood, Portland’s traumatic bench forced then-second year head coach Terry Stotts to rely heavily on his best five guys. With newly acquired Robin Lopez at center, and in season two of Stotts’ conservative defensive scheme, Portland outscored opponents mightily with their starting lineup. The Trail Blazers were the surprise of the NBA season amongst teams that made the playoffs (Sorry Phoenix) and advanced to round two on a buzzer-beater from basketball’s dopest MC Big Dame Lillard.
Injuries have made 2014-15 uncomfortable for Portland, and despite taking a tie for third-place into the All-Star break with Houston, Stotts and his Trail Blazers were in obvious need of an insurance move before the deadline. Robin Lopez has played in just 30 games, testing the limitations of his backups — aged Chris Kaman, NBA mid-life crisis Joel Freeland and wet-behind-the-ears Meyers Leonard. C.J. McCollum has knocked down 41 percent of his 3s on a diminutive number of attempts because he can’t stay on the court, meaning the only reserve guard that is guaranteed to show up each night is Steve Blake, who isn’t exactly Jamal Crawford. Nic Batum is, simply, having his worst season as a professional, an out of nowhere funky performance that Portland couldn’t have expected.
But when you have Lillard, Wes Matthews and LaMarcus Aldridge, most holes and weaknesses get covered up. That’s why the thumb injury that initially was going to keep Aldridge out for a couple months was startling for Portland — it was the type of setback that could derail them, send them plummeting down the West standings. That Aldridge opted to risk his basketball earnings future by playing with nine fingers the rest of the year is noble — and large evidence he’ll be back in the Rose Garden next October — but it’s also strikingly representative of how difficult contending in the modern NBA has become. The league is wide open, and Portland has every reason to fancy itself a serious contender, until it shouldn’t.
(Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
Basketball Twitter overlord Adrian Wojnarowski reported Thursday around noon that Portland and Denver had agreed to deal Arron Afflalo to the Trail Blazers. The trade included Thomas Robinson, Victor Claver and Will Barton, as well as a protected 2016 first round pick. (Portland is also getting Alonzo Gee.) The Nuggets had no shortage of players on the block this Trade Deadline, but above all the others (particularly Ty Lawson and Kenneth Faried) it made the most sense for them to deal Afflalo — the type of veteran who could most easily assimilate into a contender’s rotation, and someone who was going to bolt Denver in free agency this July.
Considering how active the trade market was in December and January, and how many West contenders had already made splashes, it was an easy bet that Portland was going to land Afflalo. I’m sure this deal had been on the table for weeks, if not months, with Denver correctly holding out for a first round pick, and Portland finally giving into demand in the closing hours. In short, this is a move Portland needed to make and for a reasonable price.
Afflalo has a player option next season for $7.5 million, an absolute bargain for a competent defender and automatic dozen points per game. He likely would have declined that option in order to flea Denver this summer, but then again that’s assuming Denver wasn’t going to trade him, which was inevitable. Suddenly on the best team of his professional career, Afflalo has a few options, all of which depend on how the next few months play out. If Afflalo seamlessly transitions into the fold in Portland, and the Trail Blazers elevate themselves into the Western Conference Finals or better, it’s hard to imagine Afflalo in a hurry to get out of town. Portland has to re-sign Aldridge, Lopez and Matthews this summer, all of which will have mighty cap holds. But with the dead money owed to Brandon Roy finally coming off the books, and the Jupiter Ascending-sized spike in the salary cap due in 2016, Portland will be able to retain Afflalo — either on his player option or a long-term deal.
How he is going to fit, then, becomes the interesting part of all this, something Portland has now mortgaged a future first round pick (lottery-protected) in order to figure out. There is little doubt that Afflalo is more than a $7.5 million player, but it should be noted he is having something like his worst season. He’s 29. He’s shooting less than 43 percent from the field; only eight guards in the NBA are managing worse with at least 600 FGA. He’s finishing just 52.9 percent of his shots in the restricted-area, leaving him 92nd out of 115 guards with at least 50 such attempts, per NBA.com. Afflalo is precisely an NBA shooting guard — he’s 6-5, 215 pounds — but he is a below-average longe-range shooter. He’s listed as average amongst all 2-guards in real plus/minus, defensive plus/minus and wins above replacement, roughly 50th out of 96 shooting guards on all three lists.
Now, before you go all Charles Barkley on me, let me just say I’m more than willing to reason some of these subpar measurements out. Playing on the Denver Nuggets, one of the sloppiest organizations in the NBA, has plenty to do with Afflalo’s performance. Denver had a crowded backcourt, limited spacing, an inconsistent team philosophy and a coach/point guard tandem that have reportedly almost fist-fought each other. Afflalo is a particular player, and the clogged drain offense in Denver made it difficult for him to replicate his successes in Orlando, where he averaged 18.2 points per game last year.
Afflalo is the best mid-range shooting guard in the NBA, nailing 50.2 percent of his shots this season, highest among players with at least 200 attempts. He has an advanced back-to-the-basket game, a Kobe Bryant-lite arsenal of fadeaways and jabs. He’s averaging .99 points per possession out of post-ups, the same, ironically, as Aldridge.
It’s hard not to see this move as a reaction to Batum’s struggles this season; the frenchman’s closed-eyes shooting figures make Afflalo look like, well, Wes Matthews. But is Stotts going to replace Batum in the starting lineup? That’s not an easy decision. As I mentioned before, this Trail Blazers starting lineup has logged a ton of miles together, developing a chemistry that is the envy of most teams. The familiarity the five starters have with one another is a big reason why Portland has morphed into an elite defensive outfit; the starters are holding opponents to 98.8 points per 100 possessions. Batum’s individual struggles haven’t brought the team down so far, but will that hold out if Batum doesn’t turn things around? The playoffs are unkind to team’s with apparent weaknesses, and look no further then the struggles in Memphis whenever teams dared Tony Allen and Tayshaun Prince to shoot from deep.
My guess is that the Trail Blazers will bring Afflalo off the bench, for now. He’s not really a forward, and for all Batum’s offensive woes, he’s a large part of what Portland does defensively, challenging the Durant/LeBron’s of the league. Stotts will try Lillard/Matthews/Afflalo lineups, undoubtedly, but that backcourt is small, and teams with bigger guards will exploit them. But this is ultimately a low-risk, high-reward move for Portland, its version of the Memphis/Jeff Green deal — sending a first round pick and scraps for an established veteran who can log real playoff minutes.
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Much like Boston in that deal, Denver comes away with exactly what it wanted. The Nuggets now own three first round picks in each of the next two drafts, turning Afflalo and Timofey Mozgov into a bundle of resources. Thomas Robinson stands out amongst the expiring contracts shipped to Denver as a former lottery pick, but this is now his fourth team in three seasons, and he has failed to earn much of an opportunity at any of his other stops. Perhaps it’s the perpetual stink of the Maloof-era Kings, but something doesn’t add up with Robinson, as injuries and opportunities for playing time were present on each former team. Let’s assume Robinson will make it five teams in four years on a minimum contract this summer, if he’s lucky.
Intriguing question surrounding the pick: Why 2016 over 2015? Perhaps it was just a condition that Denver asked for and got. But there’s some thought behind it. In the nightmare scenario where Aldridge leaves town in free agency, it’s likely Matthews and Lopez would leave too; as impossible as it seems that L.A. will sign somewhere else, anything can happen. Denver is playing the odds that the draft pick will be of higher value in 2016, and for good reason.
It was going to be very difficult to move a player of Lawson’s contract and ability in a matter of days, and so he and Wilson Chandler will don the Nuggets uniform for a couple months longer. They will be traded this summer, and Denver’s patience means they will probably fetch something closer to equal value. Phoenix got pushed into a corner to deal Goran Dragic Thursday, and ended up selling “two months” of him, thus getting less than a full dollar in exchange. (What a move for Miami!) Denver has become something like Boston West in 2015, as it will take its bundle of goodies and asset-filled roster into the summer with no shortage of potential trade partners and scenarios.
** UPDATE: Denver has traded a 2015 first round pick owed to them by Oklahoma City to Philadelphia in a trade Thursday afternoon. **
