Next time I’m at the Moda Center, I’ll pick up jersey #35.

I’ll just keep the receipt.

Robert Williams III is my new favorite horn player. And judging by the standing ovation he received on Tuesday night, he’s yours too.

Oh, how the Portland Trail Blazers needed someone like that. A tough glue man who sets the tone defensively and brings energy and passion, who understands his profession and excels in it.

He follows in the footsteps of Bobby Gross and Brian Grant, Jerome Kersey and Wesley Matthews, players who became fan favorites and legends in Portland through drive and determination.

That’s Williams.

As he watched Tuesday night’s surprising 122-108 win over Minnesota, he was showered with the kind of applause that has rarely been doled out to anyone not named Dame in recent years.

So anyway, that’s all great. But how quickly can Joe Cronin get rid of him?

It goes without saying, doesn’t it? Nothing sums up the Blazers’ confusing, counterintuitive state better than the fact that perhaps their most likable player, and easily one of their most competent, is without a doubt the one most likely to be traded.

Possibly before Thanksgiving.

Maybe before breakfast.

Such is life in the modern NBA for a team that ranks among the league’s have-nots.

You want a player to be good, not so that he can help your team win games, but so that New Orleans, Oklahoma City, or Denver can be convinced that he will help them win matches. And in return, they provide your team with draft picks that will one day turn into players who will most likely never be as good as Robert Williams III.

It’s a bad thing, especially for fans desperate for players to get excited about after three of the most depressing seasons in franchise history.

For Portland, the 27-year-old Williams is just an asset. Like many players on this roster full of transients, he is a short-term investment and not someone fans can get attached to.

All things being equal, Williams is the guy you’d want to keep and pair with new center-of-the-future Donovan Clingan. Underpaid starter Deandre Ayton, who missed Tuesday’s game with a hurt finger. But in the NBA, nothing is equal or even logical, especially when a team is building through the lottery, has its eye on Cooper Flagg and has no incentive to win at the moment.

The clock is ticking for the player they call Time Lord.

Williams will make about $25 million over the next two seasons, a bargain under the restrictive new salary cap. That means a player whose playing style suits almost any lineup can also be placed on almost any cap sheet. He would be one of the NBA’s most valuable role players if not for a long injury history that has limited him to just nine games in Portland in the past 13 months, and just 209 of a possible 390 games in his first five seasons in Boston . .

Williams likely would have been traded already, as yet another part of the ever-evolving Damian Lillard trade, had he not undergone surgery on his right knee last fall. Interested teams are playing a waiting game to see if he’s healthy enough to really improve their chances of making a postseason run.

The question is what Portland can get in return. One draft choice? Two? A young player on a similar timeline to Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe?

To that end, even an advertising powerhouse like Wieden+Kennedy couldn’t have come up with a marketing campaign more effective at telling the world that Williams is healthy and capable than the display he put on against Minnesota on Tuesday night.

He shot 9 of 10 from the field in 25 minutes, scored 19 points and grabbed nine rebounds. He blocked three shots and caused three steals.

Suddenly, a team that had lost by 45 points two nights earlier was following Williams’ lead and heavily involved against an opponent that last year won 56 games and reached the Western Conference finals. Jerami Grant played 30 yards of defense and forced turnovers. Deni Avdija blocked Timberwolves superhero Anthony Edwards at the rim.

“His energy is contagious,” Chauncey Billups said of Williams. “Really and truly. That’s why every team he plays on, he’s everyone’s favorite teammate.”

It felt less like a performance review than a sales pitch to the rest of the NBA.

He’s back. He’s great. Come get him.

Maybe the Blazers should even consider closing him after the win over Minnesota. You don’t have to risk further injury. (They won’t, but they could.)

Smart fans are involved in the business side of the NBA and most, I suspect, understand what’s happening here. But it should concern Cronin and the rest of the Blazers front office at least somewhat that the easiest players on this team to find are neither the highest-paid nor the most highly touted. I would give that crown to Williams and Toumani Camara, the only other Blazers player who can be counted on for consistent, game-changing defensive efforts.

Despite strong performances against Minnesota on Tuesday, Henderson and Sharpe are still trying to prove the Blazers can build around them. Grant and Ayton are miscast veterans who also need to be traded if anyone wants to take on their inflated contracts. And Anfernee Simons is in the middle of it.

As currently constructed, the Blazers are disjointed and have few safeties.

That’s what makes Williams so easy to like and his performance against Minnesota so refreshing, enjoyable, ovation-worthy and completely out of place on this team.

Now that I think about it, maybe I’ll just wait until that sweater hits the clearance rack.

— Bill Oram is the sports columnist at The Oregonian/OregonLive.