This year marks the fifth anniversary for Portland Trail Blazers General Manager Joe Cronin taking over as lead executive of the basketball side of the franchise. To honor the occasion, we\u2019re taking a look at Cronin\u2019s tenure, the ups and downs of the Trail Blazers for the last half-decade.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re in the middle of Cronin\u2019s draft legacy with the Blazers. He received a grade of B+ for drafting Shaedon Sharpe and Jabari Walker in 2022. Scoot Henderson, Kris Murray, and Rayan Rupert earned him a C from me for his work in 2023. You can find that article here.<\/a><\/p>\n The Blazers limped down the stretch of another tough, rebuilding season. For the third season in a row, Portland would watch a rag-tag group of players help them tank to get the fourth best odds in the NBA Draft: a draft that was panned by several experts as being one of the weakest in memory. The Blazers sent former center, Greg Oden, to represent them at the draft lottery, where the Blazers had a 50% chance of landing a top 4 pick, but as luck would have it, they slid down to the seventh pick again.<\/p>\n This time there was no Lillard to be thinking about. The Blazers also received Golden State\u2019s pick (#14) via Boston in the trade for Jrue Holiday. News broke early on draft night that Portland had made a trade for Washington Wizards forward Deni Avdija. He was a player mostly known only by serious hoop heads, as a former lottery pick whose blossoming talent had toiled in obscurity. Included in that trade was the number 14 pick, Malcolm Brogdon, a 2029 first-round pick (the second best of the three that Portland controls between theirs, Milwaukie, and Boston), and two second-round picks.<\/p>\n As the draft grew near, there was a lot of media talk around potential players who might be taken with the first pick: Zaccharie Risacher and Alex Sarr emerged as the frontrunners. As the draft unfolded, Risacher, Sarr, Reed Sheppard, Stephon Castle, Ron Holland II, and Tidjane Salaun\u2019s names were called before Portland was on the clock. With the 7th pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, the Portland Trail Blazers selected Donovan Clingan from the University of Connecticut. The 7\u20192\u201d center with an aircraft carrier 7\u20197\u201d wingspan had just come off winning back-to-back National Championships.<\/p>\n DRAFT RESULTS: Round 1, Pick 7: Donovan Clingan<\/p>\n Notables drafted after: Zach Edey, Matus Buzelis, Kel\u2019el Ware, Jaylon Tyson<\/p>\n At his post draft press conference, Joe Cronin talked about scouting Clingan for two years, and hoped that he would have entered the draft the previous year (potentially eying him with the 23rd pick used on Murray). When asked about Clingan\u2019s potential, Cronin responded, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t put a ceiling on him. He\u2019s THAT good.\u201c<\/a><\/p>\n After spending his rookie season mainly backing up Deandre Ayton, the runway was cleared for him after he made the All-NBA Rookie Second Team. Ayton, going into the final year of a contract paying him $35M, was waived early last summer when it appeared there wasn\u2019t a trade market for him. The time had come to unleash \u201cCling Kong\u201d so he could start Dominayton.<\/p>\n This season Clingan has gotten steadily better, and has been playing with a confidence reflective of that. Clingan recently had a stretch of 21 games through December and January, where he made 22 of 61 three pointers, a healthy 36% clip. He\u2019s cooled off since and is shooting 30% from three on the season, however, he\u2019s shown that it\u2019s a developing skill. In the 12 games Clingan has played 30 or more minutes, he\u2019s averaged 14.8 points, 13.3 rebounds, 2.8 assists, with a true shooting percentage at a whopping 71%.<\/p>\n Every statistic is up across the board from his rookie season, with the biggest jump in minutes (19.8 to 27.4) and scoring (6.5 to 11.3). His conditioning to play long minutes was a lingering question coming into the season. Now that he\u2019s pushing 30 minutes a contest, and getting better while doing so, he\u2019s answering the call. His +4.9 net rating is second on the team behind Deni Avdija. He\u2019s approximately tied for being the NBA\u2019s top rebounder.<\/p>\n