Official: Cole Bassett traded to the Portland Timbers. What is Happening in Colorado?

Commerce City, CO– It’s been an offseason of change for Colorado Rapids. A head coaching change, accompanied by some big money moves from the front office, a steady piece for the Rapids has been sold. Cole Bassett, Rapids homegrown since 2018, has made his second exit from Colorado, the club announced Monday. $2.65 million up front, $950,000 in incentives to take the total up to potentially $3.6 million and a sell on percentage.

This one is a shocker. He isn’t making a jump to the next level and is instead making the short trip to a familiar MLS foe, the Portland Timbers. 

Cole Bassett being traded within the league was not on the radar of many, if any, Rapids fans going into this offseason. Portland has been a frustrating team for Colorado to play against in recent years. They will be an early opponent in 2026, with the home opener against the Cascadia side, February 28. Bassett will be with them. 

Just on a personal level, this is a blow. It hasn’t been an offseason that has instilled much confidence into much of the Rapids faithful, even before this trade. Matt Wells has alluded to some incoming transfers for the Rapids. At this point, they will have to be good to get the hype back for the 2026 season. 

It has been a brutal few seasons for the Rapids fans with transfers and player sales. It is the life of a team, not at the top of the soccer world. Seeing Moïse Bombito leave was tough, but expected. He was always going to make that next step up. The real pain comes from the interleague trades of Djordje Mihailović and now Cole Bassett. Chido Awaziem leaving, for understandable personal reasons, didn’t help either.

Mihailović was an especially frustrating transfer from the Rapids. He left and immediately made it clear that he didn’t think the Rapids matched his ambition. He went to Toronto because they are a team willing to spend the money needed to compete for titles. Colorado has never been that team. Cole’s motives for this move are not as clear. But this type of move, given the timing and the transfer fee, raise questions from supporters.

Wells talked about the competition in the midfield and how the money raised from selling Bassett could be a net improvement. This is the life of a team in a salary cap league. Even with the restrictions, this isn’t a move that makes that sense to me. Like many others in Burgundy, 2024 was much better for Cole than 2025. But it was a year where he had been frustratingly played out of position for most of it. He has proven to be a good-to-great player in this league when he’s on his game. He’s a hometown kid and a marketable human being who’s good with fans and the media. Losing that hurts even with his known flaws and underwhelming 2025 season. Still, if you wanted to sell a player to buy someone else to improve the team, you wouldn’t think a Homegrown star would be on the transfer list.

Now, being a Homegrown shouldn’t have made Bassett invincible when it comes to outgoing trade talks. He was a big part of the disappointing 2025 season. He’s had injuries, missing the end of 2024 and some of the 2025 season. His production had come to a halt last season, but so had many of the other players in Burgundy. 

This trade makes way for Connor Ronan or Josh Atencio to claim the starting spot. Assuming Colorado will play their two big-money midfielders, Paxten Aaronson and Hamzat Odejiran. Neither Ronan nor Atencio played well enough to warrant Bassett being shipped off to make room for either. Atencio had some good moments in 2025, but fills a more similar role to Odejiran than Bassett. Ronan fills the role better, but has been a player for Colorado who will join drop between the center backs to facilitate play.

This midfield seems geared towards playing two sixes with Aaronson as an eight/ten in front of them. If Wells wanted that, it might have put Bassett on the outside looking in, backing up Aaronson as the lone eight. Even then, Cole could slot in as a holding midfielder and do a job. From the outside, deciding that Bassett overlaps with Aaronson too much and is redundant after less than three weeks of preseason seems rushed. Has Wells had enough time to make such a big decision?

Cole Bassett was the eighth-highest-paid player on the team a year ago. Colorado has gotten rid of five of those eight. Only Rafa Navarro, Zack Steffen, and Sam Vines remain. Aaronson replaced Mihailović at the top of that list. Bassett would certainly be too expensive to keep as a backup to Aaronson for the year.

Now it’s a matter of how that money is spent. This front office likes under-the-radar young players with upside. There will be pressure and expectations for whomever they sign with this funding. It needs to make the team better in the aggregate given what Bassett meant to the club. The sell-on fee could be nice. The best case for the Rapids is that the 24-year-old makes that jump to Europe soon, and Colorado can cash in. 

It makes the Dante Sealy transfer fee curious, since, in terms of initial transfer fees, it is almost a straight swap. General Allocation Money (GAM) vs real money is a factor. It doesn’t make this any less head-turning. Is Dante Sealy worth losing Bassett? Is saving money with Bassett better than saving money on the similar contracts of Sam Vines, Zack Steffen, or Reggie Cannon? 

If Mihailović is worth $8 million plus $1 mill in incentives, Bassett has to be worth half that? Or at least $3 mill? If Bassett hits all the incentives and then is sold to Europe, this move will make financial sense in the long run. But the initial fee just feels too low for what he means to the Rapids on the field and in the community.

When the team was struggling, Bassett and all that he represented was a reason for fans to care. To have hope. To connect with the club. Some fans would say that’s worth more than $2.65 mill or whatever that turns into.

This is the second time Cole has had to say goodbye to Colorado. He tried to make that next step up in Europe, as many aspiring USMNT hopefuls do. In 2022, he went on loan with an option to Feyenoord Rotterdam and then Fortuna Sittard before returning to Colorado. The second exit will be a lot worse for Rapids fans, as there was no jump to be made in staying within MLS. 

Cole Bassett is easily the best homegrown product the academy has ever produced. Sam Vines is second, and Darren Yapi could fight for that title very soon, but Cole has been the most productive in a Rapids shirt. It will be hard to see him leave, and it will be awful to see him in Portland green at the home opener.

Read More: Cole Bassett’s Top Ten Moments With Colorado Rapids

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