It’s the NBA offseason, AKA Damian Lillard commerce rumor SZN. When you’ve been on the web during the last week you understand why this text is being written. Lillard is 32 years previous and coming off his greatest season. The window for him to win a championship because the central participant on a roster is quickly closing. The Portland Path Blazers, realizing this, nonetheless chosen Scoot Henderson within the NBA Draft final Thursday as a substitute of flipping him or the choose for a veteran participant able to serving to drive the staff to championship heights this season.

This sequence of occasions appears like it’s paving a highway to Lillard lastly asking the Blazers to commerce him. The famous person level guard most likely has “loyalty” actually tattooed on his physique someplace given how usually he talks about it, however the Blazers merely are usually not going to push all their chips into the center proper now. The newest report from Brian Windhorst on Tuesday claims Lillard needs to attend and see what Portland does in free company earlier than doing something drastic.

That is all nicely and good however the Blazers are going to battle to do a lot in free company. Their cap sheet is fairly loaded already and that is earlier than they presumably try to re-sign Jerami Grant. As soon as they do this the perfect factor they will do is commerce Anfernee Simons and/or Jusuf Nurkic, who’ve very totally different values however share the frequent trait of different groups realizing the Blazers wish to transfer them. So discovering an excellent deal may already be off the desk and Portland will significantly think about rolling into subsequent season with largely the identical roster plus Henderson.

That’s each the likeliest consequence and essentially the most undesirable for Dame. Until the Blazers pull off one thing loopy, Lillard changing into sad with the route of the staff appears inevitable. Thus, let’s break down the groups who may presumably make a transfer for Lillard if it comes all the way down to a bidding warfare.

Lillard doesn’t have a no-trade clause however the Blazers are virtually actually going to stick to his needs if he asks to be traded to a particular staff. The Warmth had been named by the All-Star as one of many groups he want to play for on a latest podcast and he posted on Instagram dancing to a music referred to as “Miami.” Coincidence? I believe not!

In all seriousness it may be Miami and everyone else if Lillard asks out. The Warmth have the optimum mixture of tradable contracts, successful tradition, and desperation to make it occur. Is a bundle centered round Tyler Herro and draft picks which are going to stink an excellent bundle? Probably not. Nevertheless it’ll most likely be nearly as good because the Blazers can get whereas nonetheless doing “proper” by Lillard. Whether or not or not they need to really feel obligated to do this is a unique dialogue. However they may, and teaming up Lillard with Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo is value nearly any value for the Warmth.

Throughout the identical podcast we talked about above Lillard additionally revealed he is friends with Mikal Bridges and would not thoughts enjoying for the Brooklyn Nets. Coincidentally, those self same Nets are able the place it might really make sense to burn all of the belongings they received within the Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving trades for Lillard as a result of they owe their very own draft picks to Houston. The picks Brooklyn does personal are literally fairly worthwhile given they arrive down the highway from the Suns and Mavs, each of whom are teetering on the sting of catastrophe for various causes in 2023 and could also be fully within the gap by 2027 or 2029.

Brooklyn would most likely must overpay to land Lillard and at that time it stays to be seen how aggressive they’d really be. However buying and selling Noah Clowney and Dariq Whitehead, the 2 gamers they took within the draft final week, together with some salary-matching components (together with Ben Simmons) is a fairly good begin. Lillard and Bridges could be an thrilling duo that might promote tickets and possibly be fairly aggressive within the East if Brooklyn manages to maintain Nic Claxton. It is not a championship squad however they’d be higher than what the Blazers are proper now.

Guess who’s in win-now mode and simply misplaced their solely true level guard? That is proper — the Boston Celtics, a real wildcard staff in Lillard discussions. The Celtics are already fairly all-in after buying and selling Marcus Sensible with a view to purchase Kristaps Porzingis and his $36 million wage. Why not add Lillard to the combo? They may provide up Robert Williams III and all their draft picks for the foreseeable future together with second-round choose Jordan Walsh, rotation guard Payton Pritchard, and Malcolm Brogdon (if wholesome). They may swap Brogdon for a Grant Williams sign-and-trade. It’s unlikely Boston would commerce Derrick White but when Portland pushes arduous sufficient something may occur.

It does not actually really feel like a transfer the Celtics would make however no one on earth thought they had been going to commerce Sensible so no matter we suppose we learn about Brad Stevens as a common supervisor ought to most likely be discarded. For the Blazers this is able to be a guess on Boston blowing up. They’d be buying and selling Lillard for a top-four protected Warriors choose subsequent 12 months, a bunch of second-rounders, and all of Boston’s firsts within the subsequent six or eight years. It will be a guess that Lillard would not work, his presence would pressure the staff to commerce Jaylen Brown, after which issues get so dangerous Jayson Tatum asks out. Frankly not fully out of the realm of chance. On the identical time, the Celtics with two famous person wings and an important level guard averaging 30 factors per sport on his personal would look mighty harmful. You possibly can see why each side would at the least give it some thought. There are most likely higher choices on the market for Portland and Lillard actually scoffed when requested if he would play for Boston on that now-infamous podcast, however the likelihood to shoot for a hoop doesn’t come round usually.