The Portland Trail Blazers traded Josh Hart three years ago for financial reasons, and the return looked thin for a long time. Now, the 2023 first-round pick that came back in the four-team deal, Kris Murray, is making Portland at least pause and take another look.
The Blazers got Ryan Arcidiacono, Cam Reddish, Matisse Thybulle and the pick that became Murray in a four-team deal. Arcidiacono and Reddish are now playing overseas, while Thybulle has spent more time on the sideline than on the floor during his Portland tenure. Murray, the Iowa product, had not done much in his first two seasons to suggest he would become a long-term piece.
This year has been different. Murray has shown enough promise as a rotation option that his two-way profile is getting real consideration, even if the outside shot still has not come around. He finished the regular season shooting below 30 percent from downtown for the third straight year, a stubborn flaw that keeps him from looking finished as a player. But the broader shape of his season has changed the conversation around him.
That matters because Hart has become a pivotal piece for the contending New York Knicks, which made Portland’s original move look worse for a while. The Blazers, by contrast, had little to show for it until Murray started offering something more useful. In the win over the Phoenix Suns in the Play-In Tournament, Murray played 12 minutes and did not take a shot from the field before the text cuts off, a quiet line that still fits the larger story: Portland may finally have a reason to believe the trade did not come back empty.
