While many teams are almost completing their roster of players for the upcoming NBA season, the Portland Trail Blazers appear to need one more player to complete their roster of 14 players. The Trail Blazers need a player to fill in the center slot, but they could bring up to more if they choose to. Bleacher Report's Dan Favale suggested a couple of free agents that would fit in well with the team; they are Jeremy Lin and Dwight Howard.
Over the years, Dwight Howard appeared to have evolved and would be a deserving gamble for Portland. Howard is one of those special NBA players who admit that he is eccentric in a good way. Earlier this week, he shared that he never really had a lot of friends and that he is really kind of weird.
Despite his self-imposed isolation and his lack of network in the league, Portland Trail Blazers could offer him a warm welcome. Jusuf Nurkic will not be back until February next week since he is still healing from his leg injury. Howard could help fill the need of the team for a big man rotation aside from Zach Collins and Hassan Whiteside.
But, Dwight Howard is not yet a free agent the Memphis Grizzlies must waive him first to be able to be with Portland Trail Blazers. When Howard plays at his full potential on the court, he could be very productive. But, looking at his past performance during the 2018-2019 seasons, he was only able to play nine games after being a casualty to waivers.
But his presence is undeniably felt in the court with an average of 16.6 points and 12.5 rebounds for every game he played for the Charlotte Hornets. If Portland would give him a much smaller role, it will be fine, but there is always an inherent value to a player that could average 3.5 offensive rebounds and block 2 shots for each game particularly as a backup rotation player.
Meanwhile, Jeremy Lin could offer the same depth to the position of point guard to the Portland Trail Blazers. During his time with the Atlanta Hawks, Lin averaged 6.5 assists and 19.6 points per 36 minutes of the game. This can be converted to 46.8 percent of two-point shots.
Jeremy Lin suffered from back issues which prevented him from playing his role while he was with the Toronto Raptors. He played 37 games in the past couple of years with Brooklyn Nets. While the Trail Blazers could not count on Jeremy Lin to give them the ability of Steph Curry, he would not be that expensive.
