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Blazers trade Ayton for Powell & Tucker

Clear the logjam at the center position, slighlty trim the payroll, add a defensive-minded veteran to the team. Powell is tradable.


Knicks trade Randle for Ayton

Add a durable center that Thibs could turn back into a unique defensive anchor, signed for two more years, whereas Randle could opt-out next summer.


Clippers trade Powell & Tucker for Randle

Load up on talent with a Harden-Mann-Kawhi-Randle-Zubac lineup. Get that 3rd string star to carry them during the season when Kawhi and Harden are out.

I see no way the Knicks consider this, maybe not Portland as well. No brainer for the Clips as they are getting great value while using Ballmers pocketbook as an asset, but isn't going to be enough for the Knicks. On the flip side, with how asset deprived the Clips are, would Randle really be worth going empty for?

Ayton is an immature headcase. He'd never survive a week, let alone a whole season with the NY Media.

Not interested.

This is a no for Portland. It doesn't fit their direction and provides them with no assets towards the rebuild.

So you preffer keeping Randle, and extending him, with only Robinson/Sims at center, than a lineup of Brunson-DDV-Mikal-OG-Ayton?

If Powell is just a salary dump, LAC would get cut out and Portland would find a better third team.

If Powell has any value, there needs to be a fourth team.

But NY likely doesn’t want a 30+ million dollar center that isn’t actually an impact player… Who does??. They want another 15-20 million dollar center to split with Mitch.

How many picks are Portland sending out to motivate New York to accept?

Telfaire wrote:So you preffer keeping Randle, and extending him, with only Robinson/Sims at center, than a lineup of Brunson-DDV-Mikal-OG-Ayton?

Obviously.

Win now teams can’t roll the dice on Ayton.

But across the river in Brooklyn, if the cost is just Simmons expiring contract and minor assets, why not

Knicks say no, Ayton wouldn’t do well with Thibs as his coach.

Knicks365247 wrote:Ayton is an immature headcase. He'd never survive a week, let alone a whole season with the NY Media.

Not interested.

Dude Ayton would make your team even stronger! His defense is good and with Thibs he would turn that corner. Also any given night can give you 20/10 + in his sleep. With that team, mikal, etc. I think this would be a great fit, and this is what Ayton would need.

KdoubleDees23 wrote:

Knicks365247 wrote:Ayton is an immature headcase. He'd never survive a week, let alone a whole season with the NY Media.

Not interested.

Dude Ayton would make your team even stronger! His defense is good and with Thibs he would turn that corner. Also any given night can give you 20/10 + in his sleep. With that team, mikal, etc. I think this would be a great fit, and this is what Ayton would need.

Ayton is a worse defender & rebounder than Robinson...Ayton +0.1 D-EPM, +0.49 D-DARKO; Robinson +2.2 D-EPM, +1.92 D-DARKO; Randle -0.2 D-EPM, -0.3 D-DARKO. A worse scorer & playmaker than Randle...Ayton 16.7ppg, 59% TS, 8.8 AST%; Randle 24.0ppg, 60% TS after shaking off the rust in those first 6 games, and 22.8 AST%.

Plus he’s a highly questionable culture fit. Unless we’re getting major draft compensation to set up another move, I don’t see how this does anything but make us worse on offense, and defense

cgf wrote:How many picks are Portland sending out to motivate New York to accept?

Zero.

I don’t blame any team that doesn’t want Ayton. I don’t want him either, but we aren’t paying to dump him.

His contract expires in a couple years and if we can’t move him in a deal that makes sense POR can just let him walk at that time.

Agreed. Time to move Ayton and perhaps Simons is next summer when they will be expiring
contracts. Portland is already under the tax line and doesn’t need to any forced moves.

JRoy wrote:

cgf wrote:How many picks are Portland sending out to motivate New York to accept?

Zero.

I don’t blame any team that doesn’t want Ayton. I don’t want him either, but we aren’t paying to dump him.

His contract expires in a couple years and if we can’t move him in a deal that makes sense POR can just let him walk at that time.

That's what I assumed, but the only way I can see Ayton making any sense for us is if we're getting paid handsomely to downgrade from Randle as our 2nd creator and this was just setting up another move.

Portland wouldnt do this. We dont need Powell with our guard rotation already slammed.

Ayton has big warts but all the trades I have seen offered dont provide any roster balance, nor assets, so I see no reason to move him.

cgf wrote:How many picks are Portland sending out to motivate New York to accept?

I think this is more of a how many picks do Clippers add for Randle situation. But I don’t see Blazers doing this as is. I think too many teams are unhappy with this.

Telfaire wrote:So you preffer keeping Randle, and extending him, with only Robinson/Sims at center, than a lineup of Brunson-DDV-Mikal-OG-Ayton?

There’s other ways of getting help at center without having to give up your #2 option for a guy who’s had a lot of issues with effort, and playing him under one of the top coaches who demands that out of his players.

I feel like this board had a bit of an over-reaction to Aytons early season struggles with the Blazers this last year. He ended the season really strong and was easily the Blazers best player (though that isn't saying much). He struggled early in the season because Billups is a terrible coach and had no idea how to get him involved.

That said, Randle is still more valuable and LAC seems to be paying pennies on the dollar for talent. I think Ayton in NYC would be interesting in theory but they'd need more than just Ayton back for Randle, and at that point the cap issues become difficult.


A much smaller but more digestible move would be PDX/NYK only, something like Pacome Dadiet for Duop Reath. NYK gets a good backup center who can shoot 3's for when Robinson eventually goes down, Portland gets youth.

Blazers are not losing DA like this already