become unrestricted free agents<\/a> once the expansion team selects them. The expansion team does not have an inherent right to keep them.)Each NBA franchise must leave at least one player unprotected. That holds true even if a team has fewer than 8 players under contract or restricted free agency at the time of the expansion draft.No NBA team can lose more than one player via the expansion draft.<\/p>\nYou can see how the timing of team entry\u2014and thus expansion drafts\u2014matters here. If two teams enter together, participating in a simultaneous expansion draft, 28 players will be selected from the 30 incumbent franchises. That leaves a high probability of a given team losing a player. If the two teams enter the league in staggered years with staggered drafts, only 14 teams will lose a player in each draft.<\/p>\n
Also of interest in the real world (as opposed to our original question), here are the players scheduled to be under contract to Portland in 2028, the target year for entry for at least one of the new teams:<\/p>\n
Shaedon SharpeToumani CamaraYang HansenDonovan Clingan (Restricted Free Agent)<\/p>\n
Scoot Henderson and Kris Murray have restricted free agent and\/or extension possibilities before 2028. It\u2019s quite possible that they will also be on that list.<\/p>\n
If he does not sign an extension prior, Deni Avdija will become an unrestricted free agent in the exact summer of 2028. That is also the year the contracts of Jerami Grant, Jrue Holiday, Damian Lillard, and Vit Krejci expire. Krejci has a team option on his contract in 2027, Lillard a player option.<\/p>\n
Even if we tuck Avdija in the fold, you can see that the Blazers have room to keep their core players, plus Henderson and a couple of draft picks ensuing before the expansion draft date. They don\u2019t have a ton of extra room. If Avdija hits unrestricted free agency, that will clear an extra slot for Portland to use protecting someone, but Deni would be out on the open market, able to return or sign with another team.<\/p>\n
In other words, this protection thing is doable, but it could get a little tight depending on draft picks and contract negotiations between now and 2028. The later the draft happens, the worse it\u2019s going to get for the Blazers. They have extra draft picks and important swaps coming between 2028-2030. They\u2019ll be looking to fully stock the cupboards. An expansion draft in 2029 or 2030 would pinch them far more than one in 2028.<\/p>\n
Returning now to the hypothetical of an immediate expansion draft, here\u2019s the list of Portland players currently:<\/p>\n
Jrue HolidayJerami GrantDeni AvdijaDamian LillardRobert Williams IIIMatisse ThybulleScoot HendersonShaedon SharpeDonovan ClinganYang HansenKris MurrayToumani CamaraVit KrejciSidi CissokoBlake Wesley<\/p>\n
The first question to ask is whether this imaginary draft is being held right this second or this summer. If it\u2019s the latter, Robert Williams, Matisse Thybulle, and Blake Wesley would be excluded, as they\u2019ll be unrestricted free agents. But let\u2019s leave them in for now.<\/p>\n
If the draft were being held today, I think the following six players would be protected nearly automatically:<\/p>\n
Deni Avdija, Shaedon Sharpe, Toumani Camara, Donovan Clingan, Scoot Henderson, Yang Hansen<\/p>\n
Avdija and Camara are no-brainers, providing production beyond their contract amount. Sharpe, Clingan, Henderson, and Hansen are investments, draft capital coming good with relatively low cost. As such, the Blazers won\u2019t want to give them up freely.<\/p>\n
That leaves two slots for protected players. In my estimation, Holiday is the most likely player to be protected outside of the Top 6. The Blazers seem to really like him. He might also have value in trade around the league.<\/p>\n
Jerami Grant would be the next selection if we\u2019re judging by talent and production. But Grant\u2019s contract is fairly large. Given his age and cost, an expansion team is unlikely to choose him. If they do, Portland gets salary cap relief. For that reason, he might stay unprotected.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m assuming an expansion team doesn\u2019t have the guts to take Damian Lillard, given his age and affinity to Portland at this point. If that\u2019s not true, the Blazers have to protect him. (They also have to wonder, at least mildly, if not protecting him would be an insult, given his status and prominence in town.)<\/p>\n
Robert Williams III is a key part of Portland\u2019s attack when healthy. But the Blazers are already protecting two centers. Williams\u2019 contract expires this summer anyway. If he were under a longer, modest contract he could be an easy candidate for that last protection spot.<\/p>\n
Matisse Thybulle matches Williams\u2019 desirability in that he\u2019s young, skilled, and inexpensive. He\u2019d be the other clear candidate to protect if we assume his contract runs longer than just the next few weeks.<\/p>\n
Therefore I\u2019d use the last spot on Williams or Thybulle, whichever one the Blazers intend to keep. Unless I fear that someone will take Dame. Then I\u2019ve got to protect him to avoid a PR disaster, even if it means leaving the younger, cheaper Williams and Thybulle unprotected.<\/p>\n
That leaves my unprotected list at:<\/p>\n
Two of the following: Williams, Thybulle, LillardGrantMurrayKrejciCissokoWesley<\/p>\n
Do I think an expansion team will take one of those players? Probably. Thybulle and Williams are good candidates.<\/p>\n
Am I going to scream if I lose one of these guys? Probably not, unless it\u2019s Dame. Then I\u2019d stick my hands in my pockets, start whistling, and stare hard at the ceiling every time he came to town with the opponent. And I\u2019d figure he wouldn\u2019t show up for the jersey retirement until sometime in the next millennium.<\/p>\n
What about you? Do you agree with the reasoning here or would you make different choices? Share your thoughts in the comments below.<\/p>\n
Thanks for the question too! You can always send yours to blazersub@gmail.com and we\u2019ll try to answer as many as possible!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yesterday news broke that the NBA is moving towards expansion in Seattle and Las Vegas. This will be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,37787,38295,6,687,471,3967,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-680487","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-portland-trail-blazers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blazers","10":"tag-blazers-analysis","11":"tag-blazers-mailbags","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-portland","14":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","15":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","16":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116296680335673437","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}