Why Anfernee Simons Trade Rumors Say More About C.J. McCollum and Gary Trent Jr.
Anfernee Simons is playing the best basketball of his career. Unsurprisingly, the Trail Blazers aren't the only team in the league to have taken notice.
"Rival teams are continuing to monitor the growth of Trail Blazers guard Anfernee Simons," Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium reported on Monday.
It's always crucial to parse the language in these types of trade rumors.
Nothing in the report, for instance, suggests Portland is working the phones to find a new home for Simons before the March 25 trade deadline. There isn't even an indication that interested suitors have called Neil Olshey about Simons, let alone any suggestion that the Blazers' general manager has entertained those calls.
It makes sense that other teams would "monitor" Simons, especially as he continues to establish himself as an integral cog off the bench for Terry Stotts.
When Simons was drafted in 2018, it was clear given the presence of Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum that he was considered as much a potential piece of Portland's future as a trade asset to upgrade the roster around the team's two stars. Gary Trent Jr. usurping him in the perimeter pecking order theoretically makes Simons more expendable to the Blazers, too.
But team-building is a multi-layered exercise, never as simple as recognizing roster redundancies and swapping players with interested teams accordingly. In Portland's case, the biggest factor when it comes to a potential trade is the salary cap.
The Blazers currently have approximately 60 percent of the cap, a share that rises annually, allotted to Lillard and McCollum over the next three seasons. A market-value contract for Trent in restricted free agency this summer would push Portland to commit roughly $90 million to just he, Lillard and McCollum alone for multiple seasons beginning in 2022-23.
Needless to say, that's not an optimal distribution of spending for a team that only has so many minutes and touches to go around on the perimeter. It's also unclear whether ownership will be happy paying the luxury tax even if the Blazers are viable championship contenders.
Simons' ongoing emergence – combined with Trent's tandem rise – gives Portland additional cover to finally take advantage of an opportunity its long ignored: Trading McCollum. Theoretically taking that drastic step wouldn't just net the Blazers assets in return for one of basketball's most lethal scorers, but also create more financial wiggle room for Olshey to improve the roster elsewhere around Lillard.
Another option? Moving Trent before free agency in a deal that yields similar overall ramifications, though still leaves Portland crunched for cash and flexibility.
Simons' development is among the most pleasant surprises of the Blazers' season. While it's tempting to hear the rumors and hope for a Simons trade that keeps Portland's core intact and shores up another roster deficiency, that's probably an unrealistic appraisal of his value league-wide.
More important here, though, are the bigger roster opportunities that keeping a cost-controlled, improving young player in the fold present for the Blazers.