plenty of murmurs on blazer’s edge about aaron gordon lately, if he’d be the right fit in portland & what it’d take to pique your interest.

since it’s so easy to be delusional talking about your own team with only other fans of the same team, i figured i’d bring one trade idea here to gauge the orlando perspective… i gather AG is a lightning rod over here so please know my intentions are respectful-

trade idea: aaron gordon/markelle fultz for trevor ariza/zach collins/anfernee simons/two high picks (presumably including our 16 in the upcoming draft)

why orlando does it:

since you have a season of rehab looming for a potential franchise player, maybe ariza on his one-year contract is appealing as a stop gap? when isaac returns you’d have the financial relief of no gordon/ariza to pursue an expensive, well-established backcourt piece (jrue holiday, kyle lowry, etc.).

zach is the prototypical magic big- long & versatile, tenacious… you could finally give bamba some solid run alongside zach to see what you have, & ant simons as well to see if being back home in florida elevates his confidence & further unlocks his massive scoring potential. also you’d have tons of draft picks to play with to fill out the roster or potentially move up if you covet a killian hayes or devin vassell type backcourt stud. with three firsts you could package two to move up & still nab a 6’8" 3 & D in the mid-round. vucevic still gets to eat in this soft rebuild.

that’s a playoff team in the east while also preparing you to make a big leap the following season, yeah?

why portland does it:

AG could potentially be a better fit in pdx on a team built around two scoring guards. he’d be given a big role right away as a swiss army wing tasked to defend, make the occasional play, score opportunistically with the kind of open floor a heavily scoring backcourt provides. seems a polarizing player in orlando, but portland desperately needs his kind of perimeter help to compete in the stacked west.

guessing many magic fans are excited about the potential of fultz, but with a more realized point guard alongside vucevic, isaac, collins, evan, bamba, etc. they are arguably more balanced to make an immediate push in the east. like simons going home to orlando, markelle would come home to the pacific NW & get to develop comfortably behind the empowering leadership of dame & with a clearly-defined, less pressured role.

all very unlikely, of course, but is this sort of move interesting over here? what is it you’re looking for? is anyone outraged?

btw jonathan isaac was my favorite player in the 2017 draft, so well done there. still super jealous. unicorn skillset on that dude.

thanks for reading! chime in if ya like.