{"id":146927,"date":"2025-06-25T22:44:02","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T02:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=146927"},"modified":"2025-06-25T22:47:47","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T02:47:47","slug":"2025-nba-draft-grizzlies-trade-lottery-cedric-coward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/06\/25\/2025-nba-draft-grizzlies-trade-lottery-cedric-coward\/","title":{"rendered":"2025 NBA Draft: Grizzlies Trade Into Lottery For 17.7 PPG Scorer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Portland Trail Blazers have made two splash trades this week. First, they <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/06\/24\/blazers-post-trade-plan-jrue-holiday\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">decided to ship<\/a> an explosive scorer in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/s\/simonan01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anfernee Simons<\/a> to the Boston Celtics in exchange for defensive-minded veteran <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/holidjr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jrue Holiday<\/a>. On Wednesday, they opted to move back in the 2025 NBA Draft. Officially, they&#8217;ll have gone down as having selected Washington State wing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cbb\/players\/cedric-coward-1.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cedric Coward<\/a> with the 11th overall pick. However, the Blazers will be dropping Coward off with the Memphis Grizzlies while picking up the 16th overall pick, per ESPN senior insider Shams Charania.<\/p>\n<p>As part of the deal, the Grizzlies drafted Qingdao&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/06\/13\/hansen-yang-2025-nba-draft-profile\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Hansen Yang<\/a> with the 16th overall pick, per HoopsHype insider Michael Scotto. Memphis is <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MikeAScotto\/status\/1938053929012805676\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sending the 7-foot-2 center<\/a> to the Blazers, where he&#8217;ll join a big man rotation that already features <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/aytonde01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Deandre Ayton<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/williro04.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Donovan Clingan<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/williro04.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Robert Williams III<\/a>. Fortunately for Coward, he shouldn&#8217;t have nearly as much competition for minutes next season.<\/p>\n<h2>Grizzlies Trade Into 2025 NBA Draft Lottery For Cedric Coward<\/h2>\n<p>The Grizzlies offseason hasn&#8217;t been all that eventful. Well, there is that little thing of them trading starting guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/banede01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Desmond Bane<\/a>, who has averaged 17.8 points per game in the five seasons since being drafted. That transaction, an <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/06\/17\/top-grizzlies-draft-targets-after-desmond-bane-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">agreement made with<\/a> the Orlando Magic, brought them <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/caldwke01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kentavious Caldwell-Pope<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/anthoco01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cole Anthony<\/a>. They also acquired four first-round picks, including the No. 16 pick that they just used to trade up for Coward.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The Portland Trail Blazers are trading Cedric Coward at No. 11 to the Memphis Grizzlies, sources said.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/1938045437300134174?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 26, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>That said, Memphis is projected to start Caldwell-Pope on the wing next to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/willivi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jaylen Wells<\/a> next season. Behind them on the depth chart are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/willivi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Vince Williams Jr.<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/k\/konchjo01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">John Konchar<\/a>. Yet, Williams is injury-prone and a streaky deep threat. Meanwhile, Konchar&#8217;s a seldom-used player whose name appears in trade rumors more than he appears on the court.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_146966\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-146966\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-146966\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/06\/USATSI_26531669_168404789_lowres-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/06\/USATSI_26531669_168404789_lowres-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/06\/USATSI_26531669_168404789_lowres-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/06\/USATSI_26531669_168404789_lowres-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/06\/USATSI_26531669_168404789_lowres-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/06\/USATSI_26531669_168404789_lowres-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/06\/USATSI_26531669_168404789_lowres-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/06\/USATSI_26531669_168404789_lowres-1200x800.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-146966\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jun 25, 2025; Brooklyn, NY, USA; Cedric Coward arrives before the first round of the 2025 NBA Draft at Barclays Center. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Coward doesn&#8217;t have the cleanest bill of health himself. Still, he&#8217;s a career 38.8 percent 3-point shooter. He&#8217;s a far more adept scorer than Konchar, who has a career average of 4.2 points per game.<\/p>\n<p>He also has better length than both Konchar (6-foot-5) and Williams (6-foot-4). At 6-foot-5 (without shoes), he&#8217;s the same height as Konchar and just an inch taller than Williams. However, he boasts a 7-foot-2 wingspan, whereas Konchar&#8217;s is 6-foot-8 and Williams&#8217;s is approximately 7-foot-0.<\/p>\n<div class=\"modal-image-setImageMetadata\">\n<p class=\"ng-binding\">\u00a9 Brad Penner-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Portland Trail Blazers have made two splash trades this week. First, they decided to ship an explosive scorer in Anfernee Simons to the Boston Celtics in exchange for defensive-minded veteran Jrue Holiday. On Wednesday, they opted to move back in the 2025 NBA Draft. Officially, they&#8217;ll have gone down as having selected Washington State [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":146971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,1608,5,62,556,3,17,23,4721],"tags":[50017,3127,49949,49556,3565,1105,98,1382,49812],"class_list":["post-146927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grizzlies","category-basketball","category-celtics","category-nba","category-nba-draft","category-news","category-magic","category-trailblazers","category-trade-rumors","tag-cedric-coward","tag-desmond-bane","tag-hansen-yang","tag-jaylen-wells","tag-john-konchar","tag-kentavious-caldwell-pope","tag-nba-draft","tag-nba-trade","tag-vince-williams-jr"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146927"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146977,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146927\/revisions\/146977"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}