Blazers Rumors: Insider Provides Update on Jerami Grant Trade

With the growth of forwards Deni Avdija and Toumani Camara likely necessitating a bench move for oft-hurt former starting power forward Jerami Grant, one couldn't be faulted for wondering why the Portland Trail Blazers haven't moved the 31-year-old vet this summer.

Sean Highkin of The Rose Garden Report reveals that a possible Grant trade is not happening any time soon, or at least not according to his sources.

"I haven't heard that anything is close on a Grant trade. I've thought all summer that his contract was going to be tough to move without attaching draft capital, which they don't want to do," Highkin writes. "Under the new CBA, it's both logistically harder to move big salaries and harder to find teams wanting to take them on. Between that and Grant, by his own admission, having a down season last year, it's not surprising that he's still on the roster as of now, even if it's not ideal."

Grant, who's netting $32 million this year, won't look particularly movable coming off the bench for Portland.

"This is where Chauncey Billups will have to earn the extension he just signed and cash in some of the goodwill he has with players," Highkin writes. "The argument that Grant, because of his salary and tenure in the league, should automatically get a starting spot doesn't really hold up if the Blazers want to be seen as a serious team."

"The philosophy that Billups and Joe Cronin have preached since the day they took over has been 'Go out and earn it.' If Camara and Avdija come out of training camp having done more than Grant to earn starting roles, they have to start, and Grant has to be OK with it," Highkin adds. "Nobody should be promised anything on a team whose greatest success over the last four years is an unexpected 36-win season in a year where they were supposed to be tanking."

"Will Grant be thrilled if it goes this way? Probably not. But he's not the kind of personality that's going to rock the boat or make it a problem," Highkin writes. "And the best way for him to better his situation is to buy into whatever role he gets, rebuild his value and make it easier for the Blazers to trade him to a situation where he may get to start more definitively."

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