The Portland Trail Blazers took the 11th position in the 2025 NBA Draft courtesy of the annual Draft Lottery drawing on Monday evening. In a generational draft class headed by Duke forward Cooper Flagg, all lottery participants hoped for a promotion to the first-overall spot. That honor went to the Dallas Mavericks, followed by the San Antonio Spurs and Philadelphia 76ers. Portland didn’t rise, but lost a spot courtesy of Dallas’ advance.
After the festivities were over, Blazers General Manager Joe Cronin shared a few thoughts with assembled media. The Blazers released the video on YouTube. It can be found here. Key quotes are just below.
On disappointment with the drawing results:
I feel good. Of course you always want to move up, but this is a draft that we like. We like the depth of it. There’s good players all throughout the lottery, so we’ll be just fine where we landed.
On finding good prospects with the 11th pick:
As we study this more and more, it’s looking like it’s quality throughout. It looks good at the top, of course, but depth is also a strong suit.
Whether he might consider trading the pick instead of using it to pick up a rookie:
You always want to be open-minded. We’ll do our due diligence, do a lap around the league and see what’s available, but we’ll also focus heavily on, “Ok, this player’s another addition we can make to this team.”
The interview also contains brief thoughts on the quality of center Donovan Clingan (Portland’s lottery selection last year) and Cronin’s thoughts on need versus selecting the best player available (he leans towards the latter).