Portland Trail Blazers Get Another C Grade for Offseason

As the dust settles from the busier stages of the NBA offseason, media outlets are dropping their summer report cards for teams around the Association. While the majority of fans around town and in the comment sections here seem thrilled with the Portland Trail Blazers’ work lately, those in the national media appear less keen on the developments in Rip City.

After Yahoo Sports’ Ben Rohrbach gave the Blazers’ offseason a C grade recently, ESPN’s Kevin Pelton took out the red ink pen and gave Portland’s offseason the same letter grade on Monday. While the Blazers moved off of veterans Anfernee Simons and Deandre Ayton this offseason, Pelton would’ve liked Portland to also send 31-year-old forward Jerami Grant to a new team.

It was an eventful summer for the Blazers, who dealt for Jrue Holiday, made the draft’s most interesting pick in Chinese center Yang Hansen and reunited with franchise icon Damian Lillard. Adding two veteran All-Star guards could crowd Portland’s backcourt when Lillard returns from an Achilles rupture, likely in 2026-27. And the Blazers still haven’t found a new home for forward Jerami Grant, who was surpassed in the rotation last season by younger Deni Avdija and Toumani Camara.

While C isn’t the best offseason grade, it was far from the worst evaluation on Pelton’s league-wide report card. That dishonor went to the New Orleans Pelicans, who received an F. The Sacramento Kings and Indiana Pacers got the dishonorable silver and bronze medals with grades of a D+ and D, respectively.

Unmentioned in Pelton’s offseason summary of Portland’s transactions, the Trail Blazers also signed free agent guard Blake Wesley to a one-year, standard NBA contract and rookie guard Caleb Love to a two-way deal.