Trade & FA 2024-25:

[KillerLeft]

I'm not enamored with Grant at all. I don't like him on that $30M contract. And I suspect POR will price him like an all-star 2-way elite player, which makes me dislike the idea of getting him even more.

That’s fair, because he is not an all-star, and he never will be. I won’t try to defend the contract or downplay the difficulties of building around it in the future, should it go on these books. There are many years left on the deal, too. Four more, I think.

However, this is a player I have been following really closely for quite some time now. I feel confidently that he is a good fit here, kind of like I felt at the deadline about PJ Washington when everyone hated that idea. That doesn’t mean I’m going to be right about this, I’m just saying that if anything, I might prefer Grant to Washington. Like PJ, I would expect Grant to play totally differently here, after being relegated to Detroit and Portland for so long. 

I think that when he left Denver, he wanted a shot to be “the man” on a team, as well as a shot for the wealth that comes with that. And, he ALMOST made it, doing well enough in that role as a piston to get Portland interested, and then well enough there to get this current crazy contract he has now. At this point, it’s pretty clear that he’s not quite good enough to play that type of role well enough to make a team good. I suppose there’s a chance he doesn’t care about that and will happily just jack up shots for a team that is constantly down by 12 points, hoping that he can get even another big payday when this contract runs out, but I have to think he knows better than that, unlike Kyle Kuzma.

I also think that the line between where he is and “good enough to be the second best player on a good team” is paper thin. I think if most people here were to watch him for about five straight games, they would come away from that experience with a much higher level of respect for the skills he brings on both ends of the floor. He is a great ball handler for his size, capable of running the offense for long stretches. He’s a little bit like prime Lamar Odom, with better shooting range, now that I think about it. Defensively, it’s very true that he has slacked off in recent years, but I really don’t think that is about ability, I think that’s about him being the go to guy on a bad team. I like the chances of him making a defensive impact here if he wants to come. 

I think he might be better suited to play the PJ role than the DJJ role, and that gives me a little pause, but honestly the only thing I really don’t like about him is his contract.