Brooklyn makes a bold move to acquire Deni Avdija after taking Darryn Peterson with the second pick. They send out Egor Demin, Terance Mann, Nolan Traore and a large portion of the draft capital gained in previous trades to assemble a team of Dame, MPJ, Claxton, Avdija. They sign Kevin Huerter and Ayo Dosunmu in the off-season. Brooklyn doesn't resign Tyson Etienne, Jaylon Wilson E.J Liddell.

STARTING FIVE Damian Lillard Darryn Peterson Deni Avdija Michael Porter Jr. Nic Claxton

BENCH UNIT: Ayo Dosunmu/Malachai Smith Johnny Furphey/Ben Saraf Kevin Huerter/Ochai Agbaji Noah Clowney/Josh Minott Danny Wolf/Day'Ron Sharpe

WHY PORTLAND DOES IT?

Although Avdija is an incredibly skilled player, Portland lacks the depth of other teams in the West and has no realistic pathway to making a finals run. Milking Deni's contract for all of its worth and getting trade able contracts on top of that is definitely an intriguing offer when considering the team is pretty much a guaranteed first to second round exit level squad that is paying two over 30 players double the amount they're paying their best player. The OKC route of building up assets overtime is far more reasonable than being the champion of the play-in.

WHY INDIANA DOES IT?

The Pacers are currently sitting bottom of the league after coming off an insane playoff run. This is the time for them to involve themselves in trades around the league, similar to how the Jazz had done.The Pacers focus switches to acquiring young assets to build depth with. Siakam and one of the younger guards in the trade are now available to Indiana to go star hunting or look to further said depth as well.