Portland Trailblazers
The Blazers are not on the edge of championship contention, but they are sick of losing, and as they ride the primes of Damian Lillard and C.J. McCullum, they could use all the help they can get to best utilize their superstar backcourt. Their frontcourt might be stabilized for the long-term with Jusif Nurcic, but while Nurcic is be capable of carrying the weight for the near future, rookie Zach Collins does not appear to be that solid of a backup. Adding a veteran center would help sure up those holes that Collins isn’t filling.
Portland has been seen as a suitor for Jordan for sometime now, and as of January 22, appears once again to be a legitimate destination. Adding Jordan would give the Blazers a very good one-two punch at center for many years to come, provided that they re-sign him long-term.
Whoever/whatever it might take to acquire Jordan is irrelevant here, however, if the Blazers cannot find the right deal to make a swap happen, then they could look to Chandler to at least bolster their front court and provide a secondary defensive presence that could for the near term – if nothing else – and at least keep them from facing either the Warriors or Rockets in the first round this summer.
As simple and easy a match a Chandler to Blazers trade might seem in concept, it doesn’t really workout all too well on paper, so I really don’t know how this would happen.
Contractually Al-Farouq Aminu and the aforementioned Zach Collins would match Chandler’s earnings, although I’m not quite sure that the Blazers would want to move either (Aminu is Portland’s starting small forward and they just selected Collins in the first round last summer), nor would the Suns necessarily care for either. Aminu is 27 and Collins might be a decent replacement for Chandler this season and potentially for Alex Len if he walks, but it doesn’t seem likely that he is a player that Phoenix would be all too interested in obtaining.
Could a trade work out? Sure. But likely not without a third team, speculative waters I choose not to wade through.