Grade the Trade: Raptors add star Portland guard, add 3 starters in wild new pitch

Laying out the blockbuster trade

The Portland Trail Blazers are in similar need of a makeover.

They have a lot of veterans and a lot of young players on their team, and none of them appear to fit together all that well. They seemed to play best last year when their "better" players were out of the lineup, suggesting something wasn't working right. They need to hand the keys to the likes of Shaedon Sharpe and Scoot Henderson, but also don't have a starting small forward on the roster if Deni Avdija's best position is power forward.

Mix all that up, and the Trail Blazers are ripe for a trade. What's more, recent reporting has revealed that they are open to trading both Jerami Grant and Anfernee Simons. What if they traded both to the Raptors?

Here is what a wild trade between the two teams could look like, courtesy of the community generation of popular trade website Fanspo:

The Toronto Raptors would send out their starting small forward and starting center and get back three starters, plugging Anfernee Simons at the 2, Jerami Grant sliding up to the 3 and Australian big man Duop Reath taking the starting center job. It's a reshaping of the entire starting lineup without using any draft picks, which they can keep in the chamber for a deal down the line or to continue filling out the roster.

For Portland, they get to pair RJ Barrett with Deni Avdija on the forward line, and add a veteran center in Jakob Poeltl. This is where the deal breaks down, as the Blazers have a glut at center as it is with Deandre Ayton, Robert Williams III and the newly-drafted Donovan Clingan. It also buys high on Barrett, who has had an amazing last 8 months but is likely not their long-term high-end option at small forward.

If Portland moves off of veterans like this it needs to be for draft capital as they reshape their team, not for expensive veterans like Barrett and Poeltl. But the Blazers have certainly made questionable decisions in the past, and it's possible they find landing spots for Ayton and Williams and bring in Poeltl to start while Clingan grows into the role. In that scenario, would the Raptors make this trade?

Let's take a closer look.