Guard Anfernee Simons said it has been strange in the Trail Blazers’ locker room as name plates suddenly disappeared from individual lockers in the days leading up to the NBA trade deadline.
At one point, Damian Lillard’s locker was all alone down at the end of the room.
”Dame is like way at the end,” Simons said. ”And between that, there was just nobody. It’s crazy. Then again, it’s the NBA.”
It’s been an extreme makeover for Portland, which made three multiple-player deals ahead of Thursday’s deadline. Five Blazers who played in the team’s opener against Sacramento are no longer with the team, including three starters.
”Now we have a bit of a blank slate,” Portland interim general manager Joe Cronin said. ”We did a lot of work the last few weeks, and tearing it down is a lot easier than building it up. So now our challenge is to build it up.”
The biggest move was sending guard CJ McCollum to New Orleans, marking the end of an era in Portland. McCollum was drafted by the…
