Pelton: Blazers Get B+ For Eric Maynor Trade With Thunder

Kevin Pelton of ESPN.com (Insider) gives the Portland Trail Blazers a "B+" for their trade to acquire Eric Maynor from the Oklahoma City Thunder in exchange for the draft rights to Georgios Printezis.

Portland: B+

As noted earlier this week, the Blazers are in position to potentially benefit from a deadline deal by upgrading an obvious weakness -- their terrible, horrible, no good, very bad bench. Because Portland is so young, any deal had to preserve the team's future. This one doesn't seem to affect it either way, as Maynor is in the last season of his contract. Maynor has struggled this season in his comeback from a torn ACL -- he's making barely 30 percent of his 2-point attempts -- but Daily Thunder's Royce Young reports he's looked better over the last couple of weeks since shedding a bulky knee brace. Besides, it would be nearly impossible for Maynor to be worse than the Blazers' current backup point guards, Ronnie Price (who will reportedly be waived to clear a spot on the roster) and Nolan Smith.

Maynor is young enough to be a long-term option for Portland, though the Blazers might not want to guarantee his expensive qualifying offer ($3.35 million) and instead let him become a restricted free agent.

Here's Dave's take on the deal. Here's Blazers GM Neil Olshey's take on the deal.

-- Ben Golliver | benjamin.golliver@gmail.com | Twitter