What a Damian Lillard trade could mean for Portland Trail Blazers

Last Saturday, news broke that seven-time All-Star point guard Damian Lillard wants to be traded from the Portland Trail Blazers. Lillard is the all-time leading scorer for the Blazers and has spent his entire professional career playing for the team which chose him as the sixth overall pick in the 2012 NBA draft. Lillard unanimously won the NBA Rookie of the Year award his first season in the league, but has yet to win a championship title after 11 seasons with the Blazers. Mike Richman is the host of the Locked on Blazers podcast. He joins us to share more on Lillard’s legacy and what his potential leaving could mean for the future of his career, and the Blazers.

Note: This transcript was computer generated and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Damian Lillard is arguably the most popular Trail Blazer ever. He’s a seven-time All-Star, the Blazers all-time leading scorer and a cold blooded sharpshooter whose late game heroics were so legendary and so regular that you could put them on a clock. What time was it? It was Dame time. When the new season starts in the fall, though, Dame time is very likely going to be in a different time zone, maybe on the East Coast in Miami. After 11 seasons and many years of fearful fan speculation, Lillard has requested a trade and an era will soon be over.

What has Damian Lillard on the court and off of it meant to you? We want to know what your favorite memories are and as soon as our phone lines are working again, you can give us a call and let us know. But in the meantime, Mike Richman joins us. He is the host of the Locked on Blazers podcast. Mike, Welcome back.

Mike Richman: Thanks for having me back.

Miller: Some players take a while. Most players take a while to get used to the NBA, but not Damian Lillard. Even though he came from Weber State, not known as a basketball powerhouse, he made an immediate impact. What was his rookie season like?

Richman: He was great from basically the moment they said go. He had 23 points and 11 assists in his NBA debut against the “now this is going to be fun” Lakers with Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol and Dwight Howard and Steve Nash. He was excellent, right away, and he was the unanimous rookie of the year at the end of that season. Dame was a guy who was supposed to be the point guard that took over and guided the Blazers to the next era and he barely waited a quarter to be ready to do exactly that.

Miller: One of the things that seems striking from the beginning and is something that has always been a part of his game is just how calm and collected and ready he is in any situation. Whether he scored a lot during the first three and a half quarters or not, he always seemed to be confident. Where do you think that’s coming from?

Richman: He is someone who has, I think, always believed that he was maybe better than what those around him believed. He was lightly recruited out of high school, in part because he didn’t play for the right AAU team, he played for the AAU Team with a less fancier shoe deal. So he ended up going to Weber State and then coming out of Weber State, he wondered if the small college show was going to translate the type of thing as you just alluded to. And I think the thing that didn’t change with Dame is he had an unwavering belief in himself, and so he was able to carry sort of that chip and that quiet confidence. And then once you have enough success like he did early on, it’s not a quiet confidence anymore, it is a loud and brash confidence that maybe he just holds himself a little bit differently.

Miller: Steve Walton wrote to us on Facebook. We asked our listeners what their favorite Lillard memories are and he wrote this.

“The off-court memories that are significant include Lillard’s community service ads encouraging inclusion among young people and his calm demeanor, promoting cooperation and team unity among players. Damian is a rare superstar who models exemplary behavior. My choice for on-court memories is Dame’s 2014 3-pointer in the last 0.9 seconds to beat Houston and move Portland into round 2 of the playoffs. Watching it again today is as magical as it was then. My kids won’t ever forget the prolonged whooping that erupted from our tv room when Dame made that shot.”

Maureen Tingley-Holme wrote about that same game. She wrote this.

“The first thing that came to mind was his buzzer beater in the first round of the playoffs in 2014. It was the day we brought our younger daughter home from the hospital. Crazy that it was so many years ago.”

Let’s listen to the radio call from that game. This was game 6 of the first round of the playoffs, as the folks mentioned against the Houston Rockets, and there were only 0.9 seconds left. The Blazers were down by two.

[Recording] “And Howard is defending Aldridge. So, in case the Blazers go for a two to their best player, Howard is defending him, but throws a three for the game. Yeah. [Crowd erupts in cheers]

“Oh, that boy is special.

“You gotta pinch me. I must be dreaming.

“I’ll pinch you. Yeah.

“In an absolutely incredible first round playoff series that ends in the most dramatic way possible. Damian Lillard takes an inbound pass from Nikola Vucevic and nails a 3-pointer. There was absolutely no doubt. Chandler Parsons ran at him late but far too late, and Lillard connects as the horn sounds and the Blazers walk off the court winners, 99-98. And for the first time in 14 years, the Blazers have won a playoff series, and they couldn’t have done it in a more thrilling fashion.”

That was the now retired Blazers play-by-play announcer Brian Wheeler. What made Lillard such…Well, I shouldn’t say he’s not. This is not the past tense, although I guess that says something about just a vibe right now among Blazers fans, but what makes Lillard such a special offensive player?

Richman: Well, he kind of changed the geometry of the sports. That maybe might be a little bit of an overstatement for an afternoon show on a Friday but I truly believe it. Lillard came in during the sort of evolution of three point shooting. And then he took that evolution of three point shooting where teams were shooting more and from further away, more often than any other point in NBA history. And he said, well, what if I just stand at 35 ft instead of 22.5 where the three point line is? What if I back up 10 more feet? What if I back up further and further and further and it changed the way teams had to guard him. It changed the whole geometry of basketball. And he’s maybe not the greatest shooter of all time, but he’s the greatest long range shooter in terms of accuracy from beyond 30 ft that the league has ever seen.

Miller: Let’s have a listen to a voicemail that came in.

[Voicemail] “My name is Pedro, and I’m just commenting on Damian Lillard. Man, he brought a lot of class to that organization. I support him 100% and that’s what winners do, man, they go out and they have to go get a championship, right? So, Damian hears this. Go get one, brother. All right, Peace.”

It’s a funny situation where a lot of Blazers fans, I think, would genuinely be happy to see Damian Lillard win a championship now with another team. I mean, not as much as they would like to see the Blazers win the championship, but more so, I think, than I can remember in terms of somebody from your team going somewhere else. Why do you think that is?

Richman: I think it’s because Dame has cultivated a sort of honesty with the fan base. Now I will say this in this current moment, like the two week window that we are recording this now that the show is this airing is that I think the fans have kind of soured on the way this exit is happening and the breakup and all those things. But there was for a long time this idea that the Blazers should set Dame free and because he had this sort of honesty that he had cultivated about himself. He wanted it to work in Portland. He wanted to have the parade down Broadway. He imagined fans setting up outside El Gaucho and him waving to them as he walked down Broadway like he was, he was. He truly meant it when he said it. And I think that sort of honesty, like I want to get it done the right way, made fans kind of lean towards saying, “Well, if he can’t get it done here, I want him to get it done somewhere because it truly is meaningful to him in the way that it is meaningful to us.”

Miller: There had been speculation for years that Lillard would request a trade, but he never did. Until this past week. What was the final straw?

Richman: The linear passage of time, I think, was the big thing that caught up with him. He was very clear when the Blazers conducted their exit media interviews in April when their season ended, that he did not want to play with young players, he said, “That’s enough for 19 year olds. And if the organization chooses to go that route, that’s not my route.” He couldn’t have been more clear.

And then when the NBA draft came around, the Blazers not only took a 19-year old and Scoot Henderson, they took a 19-year old who plays the same position as Damian Lillard. So it just became clear that they were prioritizing what’s next. And I think that he’s going to turn 33 next week, next Saturday, and I think that where the team is at and contemplating the own mortality of his NBA career, which ends much faster than the rest of our careers, he said now is the time to do this because the Blazers are no longer on the same timeline as he is.

Miller: But what other options–this spring and currently–did the Blazers have with the money that they had to play with? The draft pick that they had was a pretty high one, but they didn’t luck into number one and the players they already have? By this point, what other options do they have?

Richman: Well, they had two first-round draft picks. They had the number three overall, which is the Scoot Henderson pick, and they also had number 23 in the draft. They’ve got young players on the roster, like Shaedon Sharpe and Anfernee Simons, who would have been somewhat appealing in trades. They didn’t really have big money to spend in free agency, but there’s not some big prize out there to be earned by signing someone to a free agent contract this particular summer in the NBA. So mostly it was exploring the trade market– trading young players already on the team to upgrade the roster, particularly with people who are a little bit taller. That’s what the Blazers need. They need a little bit more length, and when they chose not to do that and they said it was more valuable just to move forward with youngsters and be a little more pragmatic in their team building, they ended up here. They basically needed to swing a big trade around the draft, and once the draft passed at the end of June, it became clear they weren’t going to swing that big trade. And here’s where we find ourselves.

Miller: This is where a couple of people who wrote in on Facebook focused. Natasha Gaskin wrote, ‘He is the reason I started watching NBA games. He has made such a positive impact in our community. I feel like the Blazers gave up on him.” Allan Theo wrote something similar, “A very sad day in Puddle Town for sure. With the right ownership and management, Dame could have led the Blazers to championships.” Looking back now, is there an obvious better path that the team could have taken to build a true championship contender around Damian Lillard over the last few years?

Richman: Oddly enough, it probably happened just before their most successful season in the Damian Lillard era. In 2019, they made the Western Conference finals. They finally won a second round playoff series. It’s the only time Dame has been to the conference finals during his career, but the year prior to that, they won 51 games. They were the number three seed in the Western Conference, and they got smacked out of the playoffs, summarily dispatched by the New Orleans Pelicans. They were swept. As the higher seed, they lost the first two games at home. They ended up losing in four to the Pelicans and that should have been the moment when they tore it down, when they traded CJ McCollum and tried to get just a better pairing with Dame, not someone who’s so similar in size to him. CJ McCollum, 6′2″, Damian lower around that same size as well. They should have punted on maybe some of their front court players, like Jusuf Nurkić, etcetera. They probably should have fired the coach at the time and gone just like a new direction, new blood, new voices, new everything. But they didn’t because Dame was steadfastly loyal to his people, for the most part, and he straight up went to ownership and asked them to give them a chance, to not fire folks to give them one last shot. And they came back next year and they got to the Western Conference finals.

So the timing was odd. And then when they didn’t make the decisions in 2018, it led to the path where they are now.

Miller: We talked to Damian Lillard before the 2017 season and in that conversation I asked him how he saw his role as a team leader evolving. This is what he said.

[Recording] “As an individual, I think I’ve accomplished a lot. There’s a lot of things that people know that I could do. But for me, as a leader, I think this year is going to be taking that next step and showing how I can elevate my teammates, how I could make bigger weapons out of other guys and make other teams more so the game comes easier to me and makes us a winning team. I think that’s the next thing instead of trying to shoulder the load so much and take it to the next level for myself, just trying to help guys come along, make the game easier for other guys. So they come along and they have better seasons as well.”

How much do you think he did that? How much do you think he was an effective team leader who made his teammates better?

Richman: Well, there’s almost like a meme around Dame’s leadership. His famously inclusive leadership is sort of the joke around it is that he just brings guys with him, like if you wear the same jersey as him, if you’re on his team and you’re a coworker, then he says, “I implicitly and explicitly trust you. Follow me. I will raise you up and make the game easier for you.” The real truth about sports is that I think the best players don’t. They don’t make the game simpler or make players better. They just make it easier to do your job because they’re so good.

And that’s what Dame’s special sauce was. Well, he was so good that he could rise. He could help people have an easier time at work, and then he also was instilling a lot of confidence in them at the same time. So your job at work is gonna be easier, and also the guy leading the way is gonna tell you that you’re really stinking good at it. He was, for the most part, an excellent leader and sort of carried that sort of stewardship over into the community as well.

Miller: Butch Dunn, on Facebook, wrote about his favorite Lillard memory, “Being at the Moda Center with my son the night he hit the winning shot to send Oklahoma City, Paul George and Russell Westbrook packing in their playoff series. I still feel bad about losing my balance and falling on the guy next to me.” Let’s have a listen to the call from that game:

[Recording] “George backing up. Lillard doesn’t want to pick. Dame going for the win. A three pointer for the game! [Crowd goes wild, music and yelling] My eyes don’t deceive, so I have to believe. Damian Lillard, capping off a magical night, a deep, deep three point field goal over the outstretched arms of Paul George.”

That again was the Oklahoma City ending game, ending their time in the playoffs and the Blazers moving on. Let’s listen to another voicemail we got. This is Pam Williams, who said that she lives in the Pearl District and she walks to Blazers games whenever she can. Here’s her message.

[Voicemail] “We’ve often been told that Portland is a small basketball market, that talented players aren’t excited to come here. That is a city we’ve experienced some dark times. But on the plus side, I think we are first rate when it comes to knowing a thing or two about respect and loyalty. We’ve learned about both from our young but masterful teacher, Damian Lillard. So now what? He’s left such a legacy of goodwill, we’ve got to rise above our sadness and troubles to thank him for his work. I hope that the Rip City sign is filled from R to Y with thanks from fans and maybe a billboard, a silo, a street name, maybe a lane. I’m so sorry that we weren’t able to deliver him a champion trophy. Let’s try for a much deserved giant THANK YOU.”

Mike, I happened to be at the first game that CJ McCollum played at the Moda Center last year after he’d been traded to New Orleans and there was a standing ovation for something like a minute. It just went on and on and on. I kept thinking it was going to end, and then it got louder. It was a really moving moment. And that was for a beloved player in CJ McCollum. I think the love for Lillard is at a different level. What are you expecting? Assuming everything happens as we’re as it seems like it will. And Lillard is traded and then comes back. What are you expecting that evening to be like?

Richman: Strange is the main thing. I expect it to be really strange. Sports careers are so short that when someone does stick around for a decade or 11 seasons like Dame, they really become part of the whole fandom. They become part of this deep generational fandom. Kids who are in the fifth grade are graduating college, and they only know Dame as sort of as the Blazers. So I expect it to be strange because he’ll get wild cheers.

I was at the game as well, with CJ when CJ came back that lasted forever, they let it breathe. They kind of killed the sound in the stadium and just kind of let everyone cheer. They’ll do twice as much, twice as loud for Dame, twice as long, they’ll give him a video. It’ll be sweet, but also it’ll be really odd to see him wear another jersey and get announced with the other team if it is. It’ll be truly bittersweet. I really believe it.

Miller: A number of people who wrote into us mentioned Damian Lillard’s work and impact off of the court, Susan Larman said, “Amazing Player. But his off-the-court actions, great role model in the community, the image of him leading a black lives matter march on the bridge is forever emblazoned on my mind.”

When Lillard was on the show with us in 2017. That’s actually what we focus on, his political activism. At the beginning of the interview, I asked him what it was like when people essentially say that professional athletes should just shut up and play, and this was his response.

[Recording] “Looking at it now and how they want us to just go out there and play basketball, put that jersey on and be proud and don’t represent anything. Don’t stand for anything, don’t have an opinion. Just be respectful and go out there and play. For me, it makes me think back to kind of the way it was with slavery when they wanted the young strong and his arms long. He got big calves. It reminds me of that. They just want us to go out there and do what we’re built to do. We’re good athletes. We’re physically strong, you know? We’re very capable. It reminds me of that type of attitude. They don’t want to know what we think. They don’t care how we feel about something. It’s just go out there and do what your job is. You make a lot of money and we don’t want to hear about it. So that’s kind of the vibe that I get from it.”

Mike, can you give us a sense for how Damian Lillard has approached activism?

Richman: Sure, I think for Dame being part of the community was meaningful to him, in part because he identified with sort of the small market nature of Portland. So part of being the figurehead or the face of that small market was ingratiating himself in the community in a real way. He did a bunch of activism at local high schools and stuff, but also, he kind of picked his spots. He wasn’t someone who was constantly trashing a former president of the United States or anything like that. When things were meaningful to him, he made sure to put his voice to it. So it had an authenticity when he did choose to speak up or when he did choose to participate, he wasn’t necessarily doing it for brownie points or because it was the right thing to do or because his peers were sort of involved. When things were meaningful to him, he would pursue them and it lended that sort of air of authenticity to it.

Miller: Damian Lillard has been very clear. The team he wants to play for is the Heat, a team that would, maybe even go further than they just did and win a championship. But do the Heat have players that the Blazers want? I mean, and how does this work here? He says, I wanted to be traded. Obviously, it’s up to the team to trade him. What’s in the Blazers’ best interest?

Richman: Yeah, we’ve reached the ugly divorce part of the program. It’s that just you want these things to end neatly. It would be nice if Dame said, Hey, I’d love to go somewhere and that team that he wanted to go to had a perfect little neat package and said, here you go. Here’s an offer and it’s just not gonna work that way.

The Heat can trade if they get creative up to three first round picks for Damian Lillard. They’ve got a couple of young players: Nikola Jović, a 6′10″ Serbian forward and 6′7″ forward Jaime Jaquez, who they just drafted out of UCLA. And then they’ve got a young player, Tyler Herro, who’s really similar to what the Blazers already have on the roster. He’s 23 years old, he can score, he’s not much of a defender, he’s a really good player but he’s a lot of overlapping with players they already have.

So between the biggest piece that he’d have to trade doesn’t fit the Blazers’ plan and their overall lack of enticing draft picks because some of the picks they have to trade are in 2028 and 2030 which those people are literally 7th graders right now [laughter]. So I think the Heat don’t have this super enticing package and because Dame has narrowed his choice to one team in South Florida, it’s kind of rubbing people the wrong way and, quite frankly, rubbing the organization the wrong way. And there’s going to be a messy split by the time it finally happens.

Miller: Although the flipside is hard to imagine a split like this happening in the end any other way.

Richman: Right. These things don’t end well. That’s why they end.

Miller: Mike Richman, thanks for your time today.

Richman: Thanks for having me.

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