Countdown to Draft Day: Blazers beef up the bench, Bane trade ends Simons-Magic speculation
The Blazers spend big $$$ on new assistant coaches. And after Orlando trades for Desmond Bane, a potential Anfernee Simons suitor is off the board.
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Blazers Beef Up The Bench
In my May 4th dispatch, I wrote the following after the Blazers opted not to retain several members of Chauncey Billups' staff.
By opting not to bring back three key parts of Billups’ bench, they’ve set the stage to spend more on the bench to bring in proven coaching talent. Anything less would be a disappointment.
Not only did they not disappoint, they knocked it out of the park. The Blazers announced the hiring of three assistant coaches last week: Paris Basketball head coach and former Rockets/Nets assistant Tiago Splitter, former Grizzlies and Bucks assistant Patrick St. Andrew, and Quinton Crawford, who is fresh off leading the Stockton Kings to the 2025 G League Championship and has been an assistant for the Suns, Mavericks and Lakers.
Splitter has Paris two wins away from the French Championship and helped guide them to the EuroLeague playoffs in their first year in Europe’s top continental competition. Splitter succeeded current Grizzlies head coach Tuomas Iisalo in Paris and Splitter oversaw an offense that was second in the EuroLeague in 3-point attempts per game, signaling that this might be an offense-focused move. The Blazers offense needs an influx of creativity and perhaps Splitter picked up some moves in Europe that can help the Blazers get more easy baskets. Paris, like the Blazers, also had a plethora of talented guards this season.
Splitter can also help as a big man coach, even though he’s clearly being brought in to do more than that. In 2023, Rockets center Alperen Sengun credited Splitter with helping him develop his left hand. Whether it’s Donovan Clingan, Deandre Ayton or any other big, having Splitter around should also be a plus for the development of their bigs.
St. Andrew comes from the Mike Budenholzer-Taylor Jenkins coaching tree and comes highly regarded as a basketball mind. Meanwhile, Crawford just won a G League championship, while also having a background as an assistant for several successful teams, including the 2020 NBA Champion Lakers
In addition to St. Andrew and Crawford, the Blazers also promoted Leron Black from the Rip City Remix to be a player development coach.
But as far as the three guys they hired in from the outside, all three of them seem like future head coaches. While teams typically don’t release assistant coach salaries, based on their level of pedigree, it’s clear Portland spent significantly more than they have in the past decade on assistant coaching talent.
Orlando Goes All In On Desmond Bane
It was a great run for all of those fake trades involving Anfernee Simons and his hometown Orlando Magic. But it’s time to put those away, possibly forever.
The Orlando Magic went all in on Sunday, trading Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Cole Anthony, four first-round picks, and one first-round pick swap to the Memphis Grizzlies for Desmond Bane. One of those four first picks is also a 2026 Phoenix unprotected first-round pick. With injuries decimating the top of the East, the Magic rightfully believe the East is wide open.
While it’s a fun exercise to wonder how many of those picks were for the Grizzlies to take on the remaining years of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s contract (2 years, $43.2 million, coming off his worst season), we ultimately will never know the back of the napkin math on how many picks were for what. What we do know now though is that we can scratch off the Magic as a destination for Simons, which begs the question, what’s next with Simons?
While Simons is eligible for an extension, I don’t see what the rush is. While Simons’ scoring talent is undeniable, he still hasn’t proven to be a player who makes his teammates better and makes his team better than the sum of its parts. While his scoring binges can sometimes make him look like he’s floating on the court, it never seems like the type of scoring that rises all ships.
Meanwhile, even in his struggles, Scoot Henderson has shown that he can get his teammates involved and create situations where everybody eats, while mostly doing so in a bench role. After finding a groove in the second half of last season, Portland’s offense thrived with Henderson on the court.
And the stats align with the observations. According to on-off numbers from Cleaning The Glass, the Blazers’ offensive rating was 6.9 points higher per 100 possessions when Henderson was on the court even though he shot slightly worse from the 3-point line. Henderson’s +6.9 O-RTG bump was the highest on the team, trailed by Deni Avdija’s +6.6 bump. For comparison’s sake, the Blazers were 3.6 points worse per 100 possessions when Simons was on the court.
(As an aside…Jabari Walker is another on-off leader for the Blazers, according to Cleaning The Glass, giving Portland a bump on both ends of the ball. It’s going to make me sick when he’s making huge defensive plays and scoring on dump-offs from Luka Doncic in a Lakers uniform next season. It’s just a vision I’ve been having for a long time. I do feel better after sharing it. I’m not saying that’s a rumor or anything, but Walker is a restricted free agent and I’m not sure if he’s in the team’s long-term plans. While they could still tender a qualifying offer, I can’t shake the feeling that he’s going to be a playoff difference-maker for a team that truly values what he brings to the table in terms of basketball IQ.)
You can look at the Indiana Pacers proliferation of guards: Tyrese Haliburton, Andrew Nembhard, Benn Mathurin, TJ McConnell, Ben Sheppard and say, hey maybe you do need multiple guards who can handle the ball. However, the problem with that logic is that the Blazers have no guard as good as Haliburton and nobody is as defensively disruptive as Nembhard, so that comparison doesn’t work. At least not yet. And if anyone has the Haliubrton-esque superpower of making a team better than the sum of its parts, it’s Henderson.
For a team that’s been rebuilding, the Blazers have been pretty low on cap flexibility. And that hasn’t changed.
The Blazers owe it to themselves to find out how good they can be with Scoot starting and running the show. And while Simons has the years, given the team’s desire to be a defense-first unit, I think he and the Blazers would be better off if they started Henderson and had Simons playing a Jamal Crawford-type role off the bench. If he’s on the roster, you still need him to play a big role, but I think they should start with a more team-oriented approach.
And while the Magic are out of the Simons game for now, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t other teams that don’t fit the bill. Dallas will need some playmaking next to Cooper Flagg while Kyrie Irving recovers from a torn ACL and the Detroit Pistons could use some additional playmaking and outside shooting next to Cade Cunningham in a suddenly wide-open Eastern Conference.
Classic Finals
Speaking of the Pacers, how about these NBA Finals? If you decided to skip because “Indiana” and “Oklahoma City” don’t get you excited, you’re missing out on the best series since the Heat-Spurs 2013. While some of you might be surprised I didn’t say Cavs-Warriors 2016, the Draymond Green suspension is a slight demerit when it comes up against the perfection of Heat-Spurs ‘13.
Aside from Game 2, every single game has come down to the wire and both teams have had special comeback victories on the road with OKC’s rally in Game 4 being the latest. But despite the comeback victory, OKC still looks more uncomfortable than they’ve looked all postseason. While the Nuggets had the Thunder 2-2 heading back to OKC, the Pacers look even more up to the task defensively and their depth is something the Nuggets could not match.
While the betting odds are still heavily in OKC’s favor at 2-2, I still don’t think OKC necessarily has the Pacers “figured out.” OKC scratched and clawed for everything in Game 4 and I think Game 5 will be more of the same. While the Pacers stalled out offensively down the stretch of Game 4, their smart ball movement and player movement have proven to be the perfect answer to OKC’s swarming defense. While Haliburton is their focus, his ability to trust and empower others is what makes the Pacers dangerous.
OKC stole homecourt advantage back from the Pacers, so there’s a good reason they’re still the heavy favorite. Of course, that’s in addition to putting up a historically great regular season. But if we’ve learned anything this postseason, it’s that it’s foolish to count out the Pacers.
Draft Day Outlook
The Blazers have had a host of players in for draft workouts. Some of them they’ve told the public about. Others have been kept under wraps. I’ve seen the reddit slueths have found receipts from Mike Schmitz gushing over a young Egor Demin in an online article from a Spanish newspaper, which in the past has been a good indicator of what he thinks about a player, as evidenced by the Shaedon Sharpe selection and the Blazers trade for Deni Avdija.
Perhaps Demin is next in the trilogy. While we can all speculate, the lead-up to the draft is the height of smoke screen season. Because smoke screens are more valuable than ever at this time of year. Whether it’s to give teams leverage to try and squeeze out an extra pick or save a few million on the cap or agents trying to move their players up a few spots for a bigger payday, you can’t believe everything you hear at this time of year. And as evidenced by Sunday’s Bane trade, the big things that happen are usually the ones you never hear about.
But with that said, today’s blockbuster already has me excitedly anticipating what surprises may come on Draft Day.