Can Blazers Trade For Jerami Grant Without No. 7 Pick?

ThePortland Trail Blazershold the No. 7 pick in theNBA Draftthis summer and it’s one of the best assets the team has in either drafting a future longterm talent or trading for a more “win now” player.

One of those “win now” players that has been linked to the Blazers for a long time is Portland-born Jerami Grant, who is entering the final year of his contract with theDetroit Pistons.

Earlier this week, weposted about a trade proposal from Bleacher Reportthat involved the No. 7 pick in a package for Grant that was overwhelmingly disliked by the commentariat.

On the most recent episode of The Lowe Post Podcast, Zach Lowe also agreed that trading their top pick for Grant was questionable.

I do think Portland staying at 7 is gonna raise a very interesting dilemma of do we include the No. 7 pick in talks for Jerami Grant. And it sounds at first blush like, “Ooh, that’s a nice asset to trade for Jerami Grant, who’s like, good, not that good, but good and we’re going to have to pay Jerami Grant a lot of money upon trading for him and extending him at some point. Can we get him for other assets?

The other assets the Blazers hold that could be of interest to the Pistons in a potential trade include theMilwaukee Bucks2025 first round pick acquired in the C.J. McCollum deal and Keon Johnson, a 2021 first round pick who came to Portland in the trade for Norman Powell and Robert Covington.

The Pistons will do all they can to try and snatch that top pick from the Blazers, and Portland should do all it can to prevent it from leaving, unless they can get more talent. If the Blazers and Pistons brought in a third team to help sweeten the deal for Portland to relinquish the No. 7 pick, maybe that behooves the Blazers to make a move.

It’s difficult to see a world where the Pistons ignore the fact the Blazers hold a top 10 pick that can go to Detroit in any potential deal, but one or both teams might have to get a little more creative to make such a deal work for both sides.