Trail Blazers point guard Damian Lillard has said he has no intentions of leaving Portland, but apparently, he wouldn’t mind bringing some people there.
Specifically, Lillard and the Blazers would like to somehow land Warriors forward Draymond Green, per Anthony Slater of The Athletic.
“The Blazers would love to have him,” Slater said on the HoopsHype podcast, via TalkBasket. “Lillard has been obsessed with getting him there for a while.”
While the Blazers can dream, there is no indication that the Warriors are willing to move on from Green. Not yet, anyway.
“Late last season, they went 15-5 down the stretch, and they went small without (James Wiseman), which fits Draymond,” Slater said. “His foot healed, his conditioning was back, the stakes were back. Green kind of needs high stakes basketball to care. He always kind of stinks when his team stinks because he just stops caring.”
As Alexandros Tsakos of TalkBasket pointed out, Lillard and Green were teammates during Team USA’s run to the Gold medal this past summer at the Tokyo Olympics. So the familiarity is definitely there.
Meanwhile, the Blazers are looking to add to the Lillard and CJ McCollum combination in the backcourt, but may not have the trade pieces to obtain a notable third option.
Portland is in its first season under coach Chauncey Billups, the former point guard who has taken over an NBA team from the sideline for the first time.
They advanced to the Western Conference finals under former coach Terry Stotts in 2019, but lost in the first round in each of the past two seasons.
Golden State has gotten off to a hot start behind the likes of Steph Curry, Green and others after missing the playoffs entirely in each of the past two seasons. That followed a run of five straight trips to the Finals, including three titles.
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