Oct 22, 2014; Ontario, CA, USA; Portland Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts talks with guard C.J. McCollum (3) and guard Damian Lillard (0) in the second quarter of the game against the Los Angeles Lakers at Citizens Business Bank Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

What should the Portland Trail Blazers do before the upcoming trade deadline? Push for the eighth seed? Try to get a better draft pick?

I was playing around on the ESPN Trade Machine and was confronted with distinctly different paths Portland Trail Blazers general manager Neil Olshey could take. Get better now? Get worse and hope for some lottery luck? Or stay put and rely on internal development?

The problem that becomes apparent when trying to create fake trades for the Portland Trail Blazers is that there are very different directions that Olshey can take this roster with clear advantages and disadvantages to each path. The Trail Blazers are hovering just behind eighth place in the Western Conference with a minus-1.1 point differential and a 14-21 record.

The first year after every member of the starting lineup except for Damian Lillard left for other teams was not supposed to be easy. The issue for the Blazers is that they look like they’re stuck in no-man’s land–clearly not good enough to contend but also clearly too good to bottom out for a top-three pick.

The Trail Blazers have many talented young players but their most talented young players, Lillard (25 years old) and C.J. McCollum (24 years old), aren’t young enough that Olshey could expect either of them to make a development that could propel this team into contention in the near future.

This is especially the case at a time when there are a few teams who are very clearly much better than everybody else in the league (absolutely the Warriors and the Spurs, probably the Cavs, and maybe the Thunder).

There is probably a single-digit percentage chance that anybody other than those four teams at the top wins a championship this year or next year and the Blazers aren’t anywhere near ready to contend at that level. The Blazers don’t have the assets to deal for the type of player who significantly changes a team’s title hopes without dealing one of Lillard or McCollum.

If a team is clearly unable to contend then the other option would be to try to rebuild by dealing away veteran players for young prospects and draft assets while making the team worse in the short-term in order to improve their draft pick. There are two problems with this plan.

First, the Trail Blazers don’t have any veterans who are both expendable and can be traded for first-round picks or high-upside young prospects (Gerald Henderson could probably be dealt for one or two second-round picks or a young player who another team has given up on).

The second problem is that draft picks and young high-upside prospects usually take at least three years to develop into good rotation players.

Lillard and McCollum are entering the prime years of their careers, so the Blazers have clear imperative to try to contend in the near future so that they don’t waste the best years of their star player (Lillard) and his talented backcourt partner (McCollum).

The Blazers are stuck; they’re not good enough to contend and don’t have a clear path to get there. They probably need some unexpected player growth and luck in the draft to reach contention, a la the Indiana Pacers with Paul George.

Mason Plumlee (25 years old), Ed Davis (26 years old) and Al-Farouq Aminu (25 years old) are nice players but have the same problem as Lillard and McCollum in that they’re not young enough that one could expect them to make major leaps in their games.

Meyers Leonard (23 years old), Maurice Harkless (22 years old) and Allen Crabbe (23 years old) are still young enough that they could definitely show significant development but none of them have looked like franchise-altering players and none of them really project to be that type of player (although maybe that that’s contingent on one’s opinion of Crabbe).

Noah Vonleh still has a very high ceiling and is only 20 years old but is almost definitely multiple years away from coming close to his ceiling.

He’s probably their best shot at a franchise-altering player but if he gets there but it would probably be after the best years of the careers of Lillard and McCollum, although there is a distinct possibility of those three players primes’ coinciding for one or two years (maybe in the 2018-19 or 2019-20 season), but there are a lot of things that would need to go right for that to happen, Vonleh’s development being the most crucial.

Fake Trades

I have no insider knowledge regarding what players the Portland Trail Blazers are interested in trading for or trading away so I have just created fake trades that make sense to me and illustrate the different team-building routes the team can take.

Trade #1

ESPN Trade Machine Link: http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=j7r8qom

Blazers get: Nerlens Noel, Kendall Marshall

Philadelphia 76ers get: C.J. McCollum

This is they type of trade that would give the Blazers a high upside player who would give the Blazers a much higher defensive ceiling while also worsening the team in the short-term in order to get better draft picks.

A trade like this would also probably give the Blazers a higher ceiling as a team because Noel probably has a higher ceiling than McCollum.

That doesn’t mean that Noel is better than McCollum or will be better than McCollum, it just means that Noel’s best-case scenario is probably better than McCollum’s best-case scenario (this is usually the case when comparing really young players to guys who are close to their primes).

The 76ers probably wouldn’t do this type of trade but they could really use a guy who can competently run pick-and-rolls and shoot the ball, which McCollum does really well. With Jerry Colangelo in town it remains to be seen what the 76ers’ philosophy will be going forward.

While I’m not sure if it would make as much sense for the Trail Blazers you could substitute Jahlil Okafor or Joel Embiid instead of Noel and the same logic would apply.

Trade #2

ESPN Trade Machine Link: http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=z789c5a

Blazers get: Markieff Morris

New Orleans Pelicans get: Ed Davis

Phoenix Suns get: Ryan Anderson

Trading for Markieff Morris would take the Blazers in a very different direction than trading for Noel. Before this year Markieff Morris was extremely effective as a basketball player and would probably improve the team in the short-term.

I don’t know Markieff as a person and am not going to speculate on his character, but from a purely on the court perspective Markieff would help the Blazers (assuming that his poor play is an aberration that is likely connected to his unhappiness in Phoenix).

Markieff is 26 years old, which is good because he is a similar age to Lillard and McCollum but bad because he’s probably never going to be significantly better than he was the past couple years in Phoenix.

If Markieff was able to play as well as he did the last two years it would probably be enough to push the Blazers above .500 and into the lower seeds of the playoffs. Markieff is on an a cheap contract ($8 million per year through the 2018-19 season) so the Blazers would still have plenty of cap room in the future.

If this team wants a real chance at winning a title Markieff Morris probably isn’t going to push the needle though and it’s unclear if he would be worth losing some lottery ping-pong balls over.

Trade #3

ESPN Trade Machine Link: http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=zzggcky

Blazers get: Ben McLemore, Caron Butler

Sacramento Kings get: Gerald Henderson

This would be my personal favorite of a potential trade for the Blazers to pursue. Trying to acquire a young talented player who has disappointed while playing in a less than ideal situation (like Sacramento) is a low-risk high reward move that can really make a difference for a franchise.

Gerald Henderson may not be enough to acquire McLemore but players in the same mold would make sense as well (Archie Goodwin comes to mind). Trading Henderson for a second-round pick or two would make a lot of sense as well because he’s 28 years old and on an expiring contract, making him expendable for the Blazers future plans.