As a rebuilding team, the Portland Trail Blazers were widely criticized for sacrificing valuable draft capital to land forward Deni Avdija from the Washington Wizards.
It seemed inevitable that they would eventually move on from Malcolm Brogdon to avoid the luxury tax, but many speculated that Portland would give up Brogdon for more future assets. Instead, general manager Joe Cronin made an aggressive move, adding Avdija to Portland’s young core in exchange for Brogdon, Bub Carrington (14th overall pick), a 2029 first-round pick (second-most favorable), and two second-round picks (2028 and 2030).
Initially, ESPN’s Kevin Pelton considered the trade in the Wizards’ favor, giving Washington a B+ and Portland a C+ grade. However, they upgraded the trade again in the off-season, upgrading Portland to an A-, while upgrading Washington to a B-.
Deni Avdija’s star ascension validates Blazers’ aggressive trade
As Pelton says, the most important difference in the story of this trade turning around in Portland’s favor is Avdija’s lasting shooting improvement. His three-point efficiency increased from 29.7% to 37.4% in his final two seasons with the Wizards, leading many to believe he was destined to regress in Portland. However, Avdija has hovered around the same 37% during his time with the Blazers, which has fueled his breakout.
Now he’s having a career season in Portland, and is making a legitimate All-Star case with averages of 24.9 points, 6.4 rebounds and 5.4 assists per game. Making this deal even more one-sided is Avdija’s team-friendly, front-loaded contract, which is arguably the best in the entire association.
“Given Avdija’s favorable contract (dropping from $14.4 million this season to $11.9 million in 2027-28), if Portland wants to deal with Avdija again, teams could offer even higher first-round picks for him. The biggest issue is that Avdija’s contract is so good, it will likely have to use the cap space to renegotiate in the summer of 2027 to get him to sign an extension,” Pelton wrote.
Portland shouldn’t be actively exploring trades for Avdija, as he has quickly emerged as their franchise player this season. But Pelton makes a good point: the Blazers need to move on from Avdija’s contract. From Portland’s perspective, this isn’t ideal timing, as they weren’t able to fully take advantage of his incredible contract to upgrade their roster to contention.
In a vacuum, the Wizards had the perfect rebuilding strategy, trading away talent to embrace a full rebuild. However, they should have held Avdija longer to trade at peak value. There were already signs Avdija could have this type of breakout with the Wizards, primarily due to improved shooting. Perhaps not to this extent, as Avdija has proven to be a perfect fit in Portland; Still, it was clear that he was on an upward trend.
It’s fair to wonder if he would have played so well in Washington, but fortunately for Portland, we’ll never know. Only one year later, the Blazers’ business grade improved drastically, and it is still very low after Avdija’s star ascension this season.
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