The Portland Trail Blazers have shored up their bench depth ahead of Thursday’s Feb. 5 trade deadline. ESPN’s Shams Charania reports that Portland is offloading the contract of injured deep-bench center Duop Reath and two second-round draft picks to the Atlanta Hawks in exchange for sharpshooting 6-foot-8 combo guard Vit Krejci.
Per Michael Scotto of HoopsHype, Atlanta is getting its own 2027 second-rounder back in the deal, plus the New York Knicks’ 2030 second.
Across 46 healthy contests this season for the Hawks (eight starts), Krejci has been averaging 9.0 points on .464/.423/.750 shooting splits, 2.1 rebounds, 1.5 assists, and 0.8 steals a night. That 42.3 percent 3-point conversion rate arrives on 5.2 triple tries a night. For his career, Krejci is a 40.5 percent long-range sniper on 3.4 takes from beyond the arc per.
Reath suffered a right foot stress fracture earlier this week and went under the knife for a season-ending surgery, per Portland’s official X account.
Why is Atlanta taking back a center who won’t play at all for the rest of the year? It appears the motivation is just draft equity, a solid indicator that the Hawks are at least somewhat aware of how far away they are from contending for anything meaningful this season.
At 24-27, Atlanta is a game behind the 24-25 Chicago Bulls in the Eastern Conference play-in tournament race. The rising Charlotte Hornets (22-28) are just 1.5 games behind the No. 10-seeded Atlanta, while the flailing Milwaukee Bucks (18-28) are 3.5 games back. Losing Krejci will make the Hawks slightly worse in the short-term, and could give both those clubs an opening to catch Atlanta for the East’s final play-in seed.
Beyond helping lock the Bulls in to a play-in seed once again, this move actually could have minor ramifications for Chicago’s future beyond this season.
Stephen Lew-Imagn ImagesHow the Trail Blazers’ Krejci Trade Impacts the Bulls
At 23-26, Portland is currently the No. 9 seed in the Western Conference, just 3.5 games behind the 27-23 Golden State Warriors. The 30-19 Phoenix Suns and the 29-18 Los Angeles Lakers are both seven games up on Portland, and thus borderline uncatchable. But the Trail Blazers have a legitimate shot at qualifying for the play-in tournament, and adding Krejci helps fill out their injury-depleted backcourt.
Guards Scoot Henderson and Damian Lillard have yet to play a single game for Portland, while veteran Jrue Holiday has been in and out of lineups all year due to injuries.
Krejci serves as an immediate improvement for Portland. This is actually, weirdly, crucial for Chicago, as the Bulls possess the Trail Blazers’ lottery-protected 2026 first-round draft pick. Should this solid Trail Blazers squad actually make the playoffs, the Bulls will get Portland’s pick. For now, the Warriors, without an injured Jimmy Butler, seem like they’d be very vulnerable in a play-in tournament scenario. Barring a Golden State trade to improve, the Trail Blazers now seem like they may have the edge on snagging a playoff seed.
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