Trail Blazers News: Portland President Faces Difficult Decisions In Big Offseason

How will the team carve out a positive path forward?

Jan 17, 2023; Denver, Colorado, USA; Detailed view of a Portland Trail Blazers logo warmup jersey. / Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

Portland Trail Blazers general manager Joe Cronin is looking to figure out how he can improve on his team's youth movement this offseason.

Per Sean Highkin of The Rose Garden Report, that will entail figuring out exactly what he has at hand right now.

"Because of injuries, the Blazers’ five most important players—[Scoot] Henderson, [Shannon] Sharpe, Anfernee Simons, Jerami Grant and Deandre Ayton—only appeared in four games together this season and some of them were already hurt by the time some of the rebuild’s other promising young players, like Kris Murray, Rayan Rupert and Duop Reath, started to emerge," Highkin writes.

"Cronin and his staff don’t have a lot of information on how this group looks playing together to go on in deciding how to improve a roster that’s about to get expensive and is still a ways off from even play-in contention," Highkin continues. "But that limited sample size is going to have to be enough to make some tough choices this summer."

In point guard, Malcolm Brogdon and center Robert Williams III, the Trail Blazers owe $42.1 million to a pair of 2022-23 Boston Celtics who together played a combined 45 games this past season for a 21-61 Blazers team that could have sorely used their leadership on the floor.

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