“Renewing Jerami Grant: Evaluating His Performance and Contract Worth for the Blazers”

The Blazers have to deal with the renewal of many players this season. Except for Reddish and Thybulle who were traded into the team in the middle of the season, Eubanks left at the beginning of the season and Winslow who was traded into the team, the most important free agent is our third player Jerami Grant.

On June 23, 2022, the Blazers used CJ McCollum’s exchange to produce a special case of 20M transactions, plus the Bucks’ first-round pick in 2025, the second-round pick of 25 and 26, and the 36th pick of this season, from the Pistons Traded for Jerami Grant and the 46th pick. Many fans, including me, were quite satisfied with the Grant deal at the beginning of the season.

In addition to having a large wing body, Grant is essentially an excellent 3D player. As a wing, he has good single-defense ability, excellent assist defense range, and good outside shooting. The singles ability with the ball is undoubtedly a life-saving reinforcement for the Blazers who lacked resources on the flanks at the beginning of the season.

Grant just came to the pioneers and spent a honeymoon period. Until the New Year’s Eve, Grant played a total of 33 games, averaging 22 points per game, with an excellent offensive efficiency of 44% from three-point range. During this period of time, he has also been leading the Blazers. In the turbulent situation of Lillard’s repeated minor injuries and absences, he has firmly secured his seat in the Western Conference playoffs.

But the good times don’t last forever. After the new year, Grant’s efficiency plummeted like a roller coaster. With the same number of shots, the average dropped to only 18.8 points per game, and the three-point shooting percentage also dropped to 35.6% in the middle of the league. Throughout 2023, in the games where Grant has played, the team’s record is only 12 wins and 16 losses. In addition to his poor efficiency, he also failed to lead the team to victory.

Part of the reason for the sharp drop in Grant’s efficiency is of course that Billups gave him too many defensive tasks. At one time, he had to be used as a help defense machine, and at the other time, he had to stand at the top of the arc to guard. Everywhere he defended and wiped his ass, he couldn’t get a balance between defensive and offensive physical adjustments, and his offensive and defensive efficiency plummeted. It can’t be completely blamed on Grant.

But looking closely at the data, in February and March, two months before Grant was injured and shut down, Grant’s offensive and defensive efficiency were 115.9, 123.9 (net minus 8.1) and 110.3, 117.6 (net minus 7.3). Although the offensive style has changed, for a prospective star with a salary of more than 20 million, this efficiency is obviously not up to standard.

Back to today’s topic—Jerami Grant’s contract renewal discussion, how should we measure his performance and worth for a player whose performance fluctuates during the season? Let’s pull back the background of time and space to the beginning of 2023. Grant rejected the Blazers’ four-year 112M contract extension in late January, waiting to become a free agent in the offseason and receive a higher contract offer.

During February and March, after the Trail Blazers had their worst performance since joining, Grant also officially announced on April 14 that he would join Klutch Sports Group, the largest sports agency in the United States. By the way, Jusuf Nurkic, the fourth highest-paid player of the Trail Blazers, is also under the same brokerage company and signed a 4-year 70M contract last year.

So how do we measure Grant’s renewal issue? Here’s how I’ll look at Jerami Grant’s performance over the course of the season using advanced statistics:

According to BBall Index, among all the main players of the Blazers who have played more than 1200 minutes, only Sharpe and Grant have negative O-LEBRON and D-LEBRON. It means that Grant contributed negatively to the Blazers both offensively and defensively,

Of course, in the Cleaning The Glass data network, when Grant is on the court, the team still outscores the opponent by 6.1 points per 100 possessions.

In relatively simple and easy-to-understand terms, from the perspective of advanced data, Grant’s role is not as great as we expected.

But compared to the mediocrity of Grant’s advanced data, I would like to ask a question: How much is the reference value of the above data? That’s right, Grant’s advanced stats look mediocre. But at the very least, as a top high-flank 3D, he is irreplaceable both in the market and in the role of the team.

Of course, in terms of statistics, Grant’s performance still has a lot to criticize. But back to the most basic question of signing, if you don’t renew Grant, there is no better 3D wing to choose from on the market. Grant is indeed irreplaceable for the pioneers.

Of course, before all the extensions, signings and trades, the Trail Blazers’ team salary still has more than 47M room from the luxury tax line. And I don’t think Grant deserves a 5-year 230M maximum salary extension with a starting salary of about 42M. But under this, how much money do we have to spend to renew Grant?

If the Pioneers are determined to fight for the last three years of Lillard’s contract, I think a three-year contract of about 100 million yuan will tie Grant’s peak three years, with a starting salary of 30.8M, and then successively 33.3M and 35.9M contracts year by year, is the most reasonable choice.

Re-signing Jerami Grant means that the Blazers intend to remain competitive while Lillard’s contract is still under contract. Renewing Grant can ensure that the 4 cores will stay in the Blazers for at least 3 years and maintain the basic lineup of the team. Even if the result has a chance to be as stable as this season, the executives have shown their sincerity in fighting Lillard to the last moment.