Trail Blazers interim general manager Joe Cronin has stated multiple times since assuming the role back in December that he was willing to take some steps back in the present in order to take steps forward in the future.
The trade he executed on Friday, a little less than a week before the deadline, does just that.
In the first salvo of what will likely be an extended process, the Trail Blazers sent Norman Powell and Robert Covington to the Clippers in exchange for Eric Bledsoe, Justice Winslow, Keon Johnson and a 2024 second round pick. It’s a move that won’t make the Trail Blazers better on the court this season, though the hope is that it will help put them on a path to contention in the not-too-distant future.