I was listening to Locked On Blazers this morning, Mike responds to a mailbag prompt suggesting that perhaps we prioritize trading Ant instead of Brogdon.
Here is the episode, he breaks it down in the first segment:
Mike entertains this suggestion by saying that as a team that wants to get better, Portland would get a better return in a Simons trade because he is better and younger.
As indicated by the trade deadline, the likely return in a brogdon trade would have just been “stuff”.
Mike also predicts that the next good iteration of the blazers likely won’t have Ant on the roster.
My own take:
With Scoot and Shaedon as the two up and comers on the roster (and two of Cronins guys – Ant is a Neil guy), keeping 3 young guards is likely going to create the perpetual small guard logjam that plagued us during the Dame/CJ years.
I love Simons, think he has a ton of upside, on a balanced team he can really shine as a guard, and will develop his floor general skills with more talent on the floor.
I like Brogdon, but we know who he is and what his limits are.
For a team that hopefully wants to add talent and take a big enough swing that it bumps them up a tier, the draft will take years to develop, and free agency will build around the edges because big names don’t choose Portland. So trading may be the strategy.
If a Brogdon trade is only capable of brining in “stuff” then it’s a lateral, kicking the can down the road move at best – a late first round pick, a young, raw player, and a declining vet to salary match. Nothing that really improves the team with urgency.
It’s hard to comp Ants trade value – his two comparisons are Poole and Herro (Mike addresses this). And to be fair, Poole was dumped to basketball Siberia for Chris paul, and Herro has not been successfully traded during any star player sweepstakes.
But with Ant being traded, you hope a player of his caliber brings in some more immediate help.
Trading him clears up the logjam, and establishes a better hierarchy where you don’t have 3 guards fighting for development and minutes. You have two young guys and a vet.
Brogdon can be a primary guard, with Shae next to him, and Scoot getting a solid chunk of minutes off the bench, once Scoot shows that he’s comfortable starting, Brogdon can transition to a veteran bench role.
There are probably more pressing moves to be made in the immediate future, but I think it’s an argument worth entertaining, since at some point the reality will be that we have too many guards and someone has to go.
What are your thoughts?
TLDR: Trade Ant = get better, Trade Brogdon = stay subpar.
by rock-or-something
31 Comments
IMO, we keep Brogdon and re-sign him. He’s not going to be expensive and we need vets like him—he’s great. RotY and SMotY? You can’t get a better vet that understands his role for the money for scoot and shae, but I’m open to feedback.
And hate me all you want, but Ant’s floor spacing at SG with Scoot and Ayton is gonna look if/when it works out.
Ohhh, and the offensive disaster we’ll turn into without Ant is gonna be ugly. So prepare yourselves.
So… to answer your question. We trade Ant… I don’t personally support that but we have to eventually for cap reasons. Will we hate it when Ant goes off and has multiple 50 point games as a Magic? Yes.
> If a Brogdon trade is only capable of brining in “stuff” then it’s a lateral, kicking the can down the road move at best – a late first round pick, a young, raw player, and a declining vet to salary match. Nothing that really improves the team with urgency.
That’s true, but the Blazers are realistically going to be bad for the next 2-3 years at least. We will not, nor should we try to be, super competitive in the ’25 or ’26 season.
I don’t necessarily want to trade Ant because he’s homegrown but he’s definitely our best asset when it comes to potentially getting a starting caliber wing or some sort of front court player.
Keeping Brogdon while Scoot and Shaedon take the reins could be smart if he’s open to coming off the bench primarily and providing leadership.
Our biggest need is finding that starting 3. And if Rob won’t be able to last finding another high level backup 5.
If the plan is to be competitive in ’26 then we can’t trade Simons.
If we trade Simons, it will take longer for Scoot and Shae to reach max potential.
Serious question, how many games have Ant, Scoot and Sharpe all been available this year? I’m not so sure having three guards is going to be the logjam everyone thinks it is. When we do have all three available, it would give us an ability to try to exploit a favorable matchup. And we’d have more firepower coming off the bench in those games.
I’d also like to see more of Scoot and Sharpe before I bet the farm on either one. They both have so much promise but that’s still all it is right now, promise. Whereas Ant is a proven commodity, and he could still could get to another level before he hits his prime if he keeps working. Not ready to move on from him yet.
>With Scoot and Shaedon as the two up and comers on the roster (and two of Cronins guys – Ant is a Neil guy),
This should not be relevant unless you just have blind faith in Cronin and blind hatred for Olshey.
I think the big mistake people make is thinking we can trade any of these guards for a wing or big, those trades just don’t happen, we’re not trading Simons for an above average 4 or Brogden for a starting level 3.
>Trading him clears up the logjam, and establishes a better hierarchy where you don’t have 3 guards fighting for development and minutes. You have two young guys and a vet.
So this only happens if you trade Simons/Brogden for picks and basically nothing else of value, and Simons is bringing in wayyyy more on the picks/prospects side, that’s why I would trade Simons.
Both. The future is Scoot and Shaeden.
Agreed. I have been on a similar thought process the last few months but as currently built, I don’t think this team can or should prioritize trying to develop 3 young guards. The only thing that has changed for me is that they may need to make the decision sooner rather then later.
Very fascinating discussion…
From Day-1 I thought that trading for Brogdon was a great idea because he was going to be a great bet to reflip for more assets. As long as he stayed healthy, I was sure that he was eventually going to get flipped for a 1st. I think teams many teams not having a 1st to trade made things difficult, I am shocked that Orlando wasn’t down to make the move but maybe you can get a 1st for him on draft night. It just makes sense for us to stockpile assets as a rebuilding team to try to land a young and cost controlled piece to keep for years.
However, I think Brogdon has truly been the IDEAL veteran to have. He has always been very mature and wise since he entered the league. Everyone speaks to his stableness on and off the court. He is big enough to defend bigger players, great as off ball player with his shooting and slashing, but he is productive enough to play PG minutes. He hasn’t complained about his role and I have seen him actually defer to Simons/Scoot/Sharpe when he shares the court with them. SOOO, I can SEE why the team values him highly and potentially may want to keep him in that 3rd guard role for longer….
I understand why fans are done with Simons. They understand he is a good player but don’t see him taking another leap from where he is today. I have been a fan of Simons since he was getting hype at IMG and its been so vindicating to see him work his way up to be a legit starting guard. I DO think there is a chance that he works his way to become an even more consistent offensive engine because he has always been up front with his limitations and understands what he needs to do to be better. I encourage everyone to watch his interview on JR podcast dropped this week. For all his flaws, I just think Simons STILL has a chance to take another leap to become a mini version of his mentor Dame.
However…. The long term fit with Scoot + Simons + Sharpe just wont work. I think Sharpe has the most potential and needs to be the guy. I think the clock is really ticking at this point… you can’t bring all FOUR guards back next season. If you do decide to trade Simons and put your hope in Scoot, you have to be very confident that he is the guy. I think this final stretch will be huge for Scoot and he does have a chance to prove he WILL be a beast. But there are glaring concerns for him long term and I wonder if the organization is comfortable letting him develop when you have a 24-year-old in Simons who has a much higher floor….
Joe Cronin has a tough decision to make. He did move off CJ/Norm which was a big swing. Dame forced his hand to make THE big decision. Now Joe has another one with the 4 guards. The easy move is to move Brog now and kick the can of the S/S/S dilemma later and see who takes a leap first in Simons/Scoot….
TLDR: I have no idea LOL.
Both please. Also Grant, Tis, RW3. Get all the 2025 picks you can get so you have a chance at Cooper Flagg.
Drafting Scoot meant Dame was gone, but it also meant Ant would eventually be gone. I think the team is just hedging to make sure Scoot can be a guy and within a year they’ll trade Ant. I’ve been disappointed by his season, the playmaking hasn’t been there and he’s too streaky to be a dependable first option offensively. Sixth season, I think there are incremental improvements but I’m low on him being a high-level PG long-term, and it’s be awkward moving him to 6th man while he’s still so much better than Scoot/Shae.
I like ant but I just can’t stomach another tiny non defense backcourt. Scoot and shae need to start in the future so ant needs to become a sixth man type shooter or get traded imo. I just can’t do the 2 combo guard thing again after the last decade. It would be like we didn’t learn anything from that era.
Always been a Simons fan, love his game, dude can light it up. He’s a PG, Scoot is a PG. Scoot is the future. Simons can’t defend. We have our Monte/Steph situation. Simons should be traded for the better haul for the TEAM.
I agree, we will need to trade one of Ant/Scoot/Sharpe eventually (unless either Scoot or Sharpe never gets good enough that they demand a starting role).
The main problem I have today with trading Ant is that he is far and away the best of the 3. Scoot and Shaedon are just flat out not good yet. We hope and pray that they develop into their potential, but questions abound.
Ant is good today and still improving. His handle and decision making this season are better than last season. I personally believe he is motivated to improve on defense and we will see that happen over the next 1-2 seasons. He is still young so his value is not in decline. If the other two do reach their potential, Ant’s value will not have changed (in fact it could increase if he does indeed improve defensively)
Thanks for the post, I think this is a very interesting debate.
I know it’s not a fun answer, but I lean towards, who can you get the best value for? Meaning if the market is luke warm for Brogdon, but you have someone willing to match or beat our internal valuation of Ant, then trade Ant.
Again, that’s not fun because we don’t know those details. But I’ve also been thinking about this same question for a while now. I’m concerned that the longer we wait, the less leverage we will have in an Ant trade. Even if Ant improves over that same time period. Kind of like what happened with CJ.
So what I would be looking at is trading Ant this summer or at next years trade deadline. If you get good value for Brogdon this summer though, don’t turn that down either.
I like Ant, but in my opinion he is the type of player who needs a specific roster type built around him, but he’s not quite good enough to do that and be a contender. He’s more supplemental to a team built around someone else. So sell as high as possible.
Whynotbothmeme.jpg
I get that this comment doesn’t answer the question, but debates like this are why I’m glad I’m not Cronin.
It’s all educated gambling. You want to base decisions on pure logic, but you can’t because these are real people you’re dealing with and fans like us are… fickle at best.
Then again, nothing cures resentment better than winning.
So to somewhat respond here: I’d have a long conversation with Chauncey (assuming you’re all in with him as the coach for the remainder of his contract at a minimum) about Ant playing the 2 – specifically from a defensive standpoint (his offense isn’t the problem at all.) If the coaching staff can truly do what they were hired to do – significantly improve defense – then I’d say give Scoot/Ant/Brogdon another year, at a minimum.
To me, consistency and chemistry are very underrated in these decisions (from a fan’s perspective anyway – I don’t know what is discussed behind closed doors within the organization. I think that’s especially true for defense.)
Then again, as I said, I’m no NBA FO exec. I’m just a fan that wants to see his team win it all one day in the not-so-distant future.
Look, as much as we like Mike Rich, doing a podcast 5 days a week means you have a lot of airtime to fill even when there’s nothing to talk about, especially during the all star break. Today’s episode was kinda that level of bullshit.
We should absolutely not move on from Ant unless Scoot AND Sharpe both take an Antlike leap. There’s no guarantees here, and we don’t know yet what we have.
I think it’s too early to trade for fit. Trade for value right now. Combo guards don’t have a lot of value so if we trade for a wing it’s most likely going to be a downgrade in talent level.
Scoot and Sharpe aren’t ready to have the roster built around them and they’re not guaranteed stars. Keep plowing ahead with the best players available.
I generally agree with you. I like Ant a lot, but I don’t see a successful future with him as the cornerstone of the team. He’s a negative on defense, and I think in Year 6, it’s safe to say he is not superstar material like Luka, Ja, Shai, Ant Edwards, etc. in that age bracket. If he’s the best player on a team, that team is just not going to be very good. Keeping him around now is fine, but he limits our cieling long-term. We know players like him dont have a high market value in trades, so at some point we just need to suck it up and move on, even if we get lesser assets in return.
trade both.
I want to find a way to trade Malcolm, Matisse, Ant and even Rob Williams before/during the draft/start of the season. The way the draft is lining up, I can see us selecting someone like Castle/Dillingham/Collier (maybe even Reed Shepherd) with our GSW pick instead of guys like Clingan/Filipowski. Remember, we’re not a good team so we have to be careful about allowing “fit” to cloud our judgement around evaluating basketball talent. Picking BPA is the reason we’re not sitting with Dyson Daniels instead of Shaedon Sharpe right now, or a Thompson twin over Scoot at the moment.
Trade Malcolm/Tisse/Ant/Williams for nothing but expiring/bad contracts and future draft picks. Let’s bring this thing damn near down to the studs with the exception of Grant/Ayton staying behind.
Have something like this:
Scoot/Shaedon/GSW FRP/Rupert (96 minutes split amongst them at the PG/SG)
PDX FRP/Jerami Grant/Toumani/Jabari/Murray (96 minutes split amongst them at SF/PF)
Ayton/Duop can be our 1/2 punch at the 5 (48 minutes split exclusively at the 5). Or we can keep Rob Williams and make Duop be our 3rd big that can stretch the floor situationally.
You can insert Sarr/Risacher/Williams/Buzelis/Holland into the PDX FRP spot at the forward position and insert Castle/Dillingham/Collier/Shepherd into the GSW FRP spot as the 3rd guard.
I’m just not sure that Trade Ant = get better. As a streaky, undersized combo guard with significant defensive deficiencies, his trade value is pretty low.
That’s not to say that Brogdon’s value is much higher, but he least has a veteran presence that *some* teams may be willing to give up something substantial for.
Would rather trade Grant who is 29 and is owed 32 mil for the next 4 years or so. We would have to fill his spot but definitely aren’t going anywhere with him and his giant contract.
Simon’s is only 24. I think we give him one more year to break out and let scoot develop. We trade him next year unless he significantly improved or at least becomes more consistent.
I guess I see it as a win win. Either he gets better and so does the team or we trade him next year for a similar package to what we would get this year.
I agree with brogden 100%.
The Blazers have been super invested in guards for well over a decade. When was the last time a team of primarily guard dominated offense even sniffed being a contender? Let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past and we should be looking for that scoring two way wing of the future.
You trade them both. This is a project team. Ant isn’t a center piece and won’t be in 5 years (yes, he’s a decent scorer and I like his game but..)
Follow the thunder and what they’ve done. Collect picks and build through the draft/sell off some talent when we’re ready to make the next step of competing.
Disclaimer: I’m sure that I would be a terrible GM
Never trade youth
In regards to a comp for Ant’s trade value I think the most recent trade of Rozier provides a blueprint at least. Another smallish PG/SG that put up comparable offensive numbers on a bad team. Rozier is older and smaller, but Ant’s defense/playmaking is worse.
Rozier was traded for Lowry (expiring contract) and 2027 1st.
Trade both
I’m glad a portion of the fanbase shares my feelings on the Ant+Brogdon situation. Scoot+Shaedon are the future. Ant can get buckets there is absolutely no doubt about it and he MIGHT be an All Star one day because he is averaging 27ppg however his defense will never be what Shaedon can do due to his size and length sadly.
All that being said you don’t trade Ant until you get an offer that is proportional to that of which a guard of his talents offensively should garner. 2 Firsts and a rotational player in return is probably the ballpark area where we pull the trigger at. We will probably have to end up accepting an offer where the rotational player is fringe like a Matysse caliber of player but it wont matter in the long run because Scoot+Shae is our future.
Agreed with trading Ant. People lost their minds with the “he is our best player why trade?” comments earlier this year, but think about that – if Ant truly is our best player then our ceiling is already hella capped and he gotta go.