Denver Nuggets: 3 possible Damian Lillard trades
By Sean Carroll
It looks as though Damian Lillard’s time with the Portland Trail Blazers might be coming to an end. With the assets to make a swing, should the Denver Nuggets try and make a move for the star guard?
Tim Connelly and the Nuggets front office have made it clear in the past that it doesn’t want to ‘skip steps’. It doesn’t want to trade out of its current championship trajectory for a short-term jump. But it’s not often a player of Lillard’s caliber is on the market.
With Jamal Murray sidelined with an ACL injury, bringing in the healthy Dame might push this Denver team over the top and into the next tier?
After losing to these exact Murray-less Nuggets in the first round of the 2021 NBA playoffs, things got weird in Portland. They fired their long-time head coach Terry Stotts and recently hired Chauncy Billups to a five-year deal.
On top of that, Dame’s usual ‘I’m a Trail Blazer for life’ motif has changed and he has even been sharing what some believe to be veiled messages to Neil Olshey and the Blazers’ front office in an Instagram post.
The Billups hire also saw Portland face some criticism as Chauncey’s sexual assault allegations from 1997 were brought to the forefront.
Adrian Wojnarowski, ESPN reported that before the hire, Portland conducted their own investigation into the allegation. Billups settled a civil lawsuit filed by the woman.
The report adds that the former point guard had been vetted before being offered the president of basketball operations role with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2017 and before his current role as an assistant coach with the LA Clippers.
It’s messy. Chris Haynes, Yahoo! Sports added that the backlash from the hire has become a factor in Lillard’s decision to stay with the franchise:
"“The enormous backlash from the Portland Trail Blazers’ process to hire a new coach and his concerns on whether a championship contender can be built have become factors that may push the franchise player — Damian Lillard — out the door, league sources told Yahoo! Sports. “Lillard has remained loyal to Portland in large part due to the tremendous fan base. But over the last few days, he’s seen some of those same fans attacking him on social media for a pending coaching hire he played no part in consummating, sources said.”"
If Dame is on the out in Portland, there will likely be plenty of teams queuing up to trade for his services.
Before getting into Denver’s side of this, keep in mind that all these offers are hypothetical. Dame hasn’t requested a trade, Olshey hasn’t said he’s listening to offers, and heck, there’s still basketball being played so we’re not even in the offseason yet.