Report: Detroit Pistons trade Jerami Grant to Portland Trail Blazers for first-round draft pick
The Detroit Pistons traded 28-year-old wing Jerami Grant to the Portland Trail Blazers for a top-four protected 2025 first-round draft pick from the Milwaukee Bucks, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.
In the deal, Portland and Detroit will reportedly swap the Nos. 36 and 46 picks in the second round of Thursday's NBA draft. The Blazers will return the Pistons' 2025 second-round pick to Detroit. Portland also dealt the Pistons the more favorable of its own second-round pick and the New Orleans Pelicans' in 2026.
In the process, Detroit opens up an additional $21 million in salary cap space to lure free agents.
Grant averaged 19.2 points (on 43/36/84 shooting splits), 4.1 rebounds and 2.4 assists in 31.9 minutes over 47 games for the Pistons last season. He was an integral role player for the Denver Nuggets during their run to the 2020 Eastern Conference finals before seeking more playmaking responsibility in free agency. The Pistons gave him a three-year, $60 million contract and higher usage in 2020, and he emerged as a fringe All-Star candidate. With him as a primary option, though, Detroit won 43 games over the past two seasons.
Grant is another wing in a long line of options the Blazers have tried to fit around six-time All-Star point guard Damian Lillard, and he might be the best of a bunch that has included Norman Powell, Robert Covington, Gary Trent Jr., Trevor Ariza, Rodney Hood, Mo Harkless and Al-Farouq Aminu, among others.
The upgrade is a necessary one to improve a roster that won 27 games without Lillard for the majority of last season. The Blazers traded Covington, Powell, Larry Nance Jr. and Lillard's longtime backcourt partner, CJ McCollum, prior to the deadline in February, hoping to expedite a rebuild around their franchise player.
Portland general manager Joe Cronin acquired Grant's expiring $21 million salary, which will fit into salary cap space, without parting with the No. 7 overall pick in Thursday's draft. Two of the draft picks that Cronin traded to Detroit for Grant came in the McCollum deal. The haul from trading McCollum and Nance in February now includes Josh Hart, Jerami Grant, Elijah Hughes, Didi Louzada and two second-round picks.
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Ben Rohrbach is a staff writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach
