Remember Allen Crabbe? You know, the guy the Brooklyn Nets offered $75 million and everyone lost their mind over? Well he’s back in the news. The Portland Trailblazers, who matched him, are looking for a salary dump after an underwhelming season.
The Portland Trailblazers have little flexibility going forward. They would even consider giving up a draft pick to entice teams to take on the salary. Allen Crabbe is set to make $57 million over the next three years, which links his name to a few rumors.
The Brooklyn Nets have an upwards of $40 million in cap space, and have a history with Crabbe. Making a trade between them and Portland plausible.
So what would Brooklyn have to give up? How would Crabbe fit?
Portland GM Neil Olshey wouldn’t just give up Crabbe for nothing. Sean Marks may have to relinquish Sean Kilpatrick. Trevor Booker and one of first round pick may be required to acquire Crabbe and Portland’s first round pick.
This still gives Brooklyn cap room going into this free agency. It also gives the Nets a better pick in the draft. Portland also gains a scorer in Kilpatrick and a man to do the dirty work in Booker. They would have Crabbe’s contract off the books, giving them at least some flexibility this offseason.
For Brooklyn, they would get a guy who is an elite scorer and can help Brooklyn’s offense continue to improve under Kenny Atkinson.
Crabbe would fit in perfectly with the Nets’ motion offense. Atkinson’s focus on ball movement and the three pointer would fit Crabbe’s profile. Crabbe scored 10.7 points per game in just 28.5 minutes per game on the Trail Blazers last year. With an expanded role on the Nets, he could easily average 17-18 points per game and average two or three threes per game.
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Brooklyn shot 31.6 three pointers last season, but made just .338% of them, the fourth worst the league. This is exactly Crabbe’s biggest strength and it can help Brooklyn improve. He shot 44.4% from three this past year, the second best in the league, and will certainly find more looks from downtown in Brooklyn. With Jeremy Lin creating, Crabbe can be a catch and shoot player who doesn’t have to create as much.
It makes to much sense, the Nets could grab a player that they wanted and not give up that much. Plus they could still have plenty of cap space to improve via free agency.