The Portland Trail Blazers and the Atlanta Hawks made a swap of veteran players on expiring contracts on Monday.
The Hawks sent shooting guard Kent Bazemore to the Blazers in exchange for small forward Evan Turner. The deal is a straight-up swap, with no other assets or money changing hands.
The move is easy to understand from Portland’s point of view. While Turner is an experienced veteran, Bazemore will be an important addition for a Blazers team that fell in the Western Conference Finals this past season.
Bazemore will give the Blazers a scoring boost to complement guard Damian Lillard. The 27-year-old guard is a threat from outside, shooting over 35% from beyond the arc in his career.
It also isn’t too hard to understand why Atlanta would acquire Turner. The well-traveled veteran small forward has a reputation as being an excellent teammate and has been cited as having been an instrumental piece in building the young team led the Blazers rode to advance deep into the playoffs.
It’s not coincidental that the Hawks are also a young team that is looking to build for the future. They’ll be able to use Turner as a decent wing player and as a sort of mentor for young players such as Trae Young.
The deal is expected to be confirmed by both teams in the next couple of days.
