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When the Portland Trail Blazers moved up to No. 3 in the lottery, they had the opportunity to make a win-now trade to improve their chances of contending with Damian Lillard. But Joe Cronin explained how no win-now trade materialized using the selection that became Scoot Henderson that provided equal value for the Blazers, similar to when they selected Shaedon Sharpe at No. 7 in 2022.

With the Blazers drafting another high upside young player, Damian Lillard decided to request a trade on July 1st.

“Building around Dame has always been the goal all the way, even through the draft,” said Cronin via Tim Bontemps of ESPN. “The difficult things we ran into were finding the right deals. In the previous two years, we drafted at seven, then we drafted at three. In the meantime we were scouring the market looking for more win now players and what kept happening was those players just weren’t available. So each time we just tried to weigh that.

“In Shaedon’s draft, pick seven, what does that look like versus what’s available on the market. And the answer was obvious: Shaedon’s better. And same thing happened this time. What does pick three look like versus the return to the market? It wasn’t close. Had to go three. So it wasn’t necessarily intentional, it was just doing what’s best for this team, and we kept doing that and I could see why Dame would look at it and say. ‘Well this isn’t a win now opportunity as much as, or this isn’t as much of a win now opportunity as some other places.

“So from that regard, I mean I understand his position and I respect it and it makes sense to me why he would look to go elsewhere.”