Hold the line on Damian Lillard, Philadelphia 76ers

It’s been a very weird week for the Philadelphia 76ers, and, get this, it’s only Wednesday.

The team has ripped off two straight wins, including one without Tyrese Maxey, Georges Niang has launched a podcast, and the general feeling around the organization can be presently described as cautiously optimistic, which is better than the week prior.

And yet, Ben Simmons trade talks have crept back into the conversation just as things were starting to feel borderline normal again, and just like that, the NBA social media landscape has been flooded with hypothetical trades, rumors, and more talk about CJ McCollum‘s talent-level than at any point in his nine-year NBA career.

But guess what? For once, Simmons isn’t the top topic of trade conversations. That’s right, in a weird twist of fate that felt impossible on Monday, when sources close to Damian Lillard opined about his desire to play alongside a defensive star like Simmons, questions have bubbled to the surface about Portland’s long-term commitment to their best player moving forward, with some potential GM candidates suggesting the best decision moving forward might just be to cash out while his value is high to start an asset-rich rebuild.

Needless to say, get your popcorn ready, Philadelphia 76ers fans; this is going to get interesting.

The Philadelphia 76ers need to shut down any non-Damian Lillard trade talks.

Damian Lillard wants to remain with the Portland Trail Blazers.

I’ve heard it, you’ve heard it; it’s the prevailing narrative that the player himself has held true to any time he’s asked, and even sometimes when he isn’t.

On paper, there are a number of reasons why Lillard would feel this way. He’s the guy in Portland, a literal hero to hundreds of thousands in the pacific northwest, with the potential to end out his career as the organization’s all-time best player. But another reason why the Lillard may want to remain in Portland long-term, divorced from his championship aspirations, is paper itself, as he has the potential to become the highest-paid player in the NBA if he can secure another max contract with the Blazers.

Hmm, I wonder if that could play into his thinking too?

Normally, this would be both understandable and warranted, as typically teams give max deals to their best players, but according to Adrian Wojnarowski, many of the candidates for Portland’s now-vacant GM job have asked if they’d be afforded an ability to trade Lillard if they felt so inclined, as the Blazers’ need for a ground-up rebuild could not be more obvious.

Either way, that situation will come to a head, and probably in the not too distant future. Things went from Portland potentially being interested in trading of Ben Simmons – or another defense-focused player – to trading Dame in the span of a day, and now that CJ McCollum is expected to be out indefinitely with a collapsed lung, the chances of interim GM Joe Cronin moving around Portland’s supporting cast for theoretically better fits feels incredibly unlikely.

If there was ever a time for noted-Crypto fan Daryl Morey to “hold the line” and wait it out for the Lillard situation to further develop, it would be now.

Assuming the situation does come to a head and Lillard accepts that his current franchise is less committed to him than he would like, many an expert has suggested that the market for Lillard could come down to a two-team bout between the Philadelphia 76ers and the New York Knicks. Of the duo, Philly has the better player to offer in Ben Simmons, (almost) as many draft picks to offer up, and a half-dozen young players they would surely be willing to listen to offers on from a budding star in Tyrese Maxey, rotational players like Matisse Thybulle, Paul Reed, and Isaiah Joe, and longer-term developmental options like Jalen Springer and Charles Bassey. Unless the Blazers believe strongly that the likes of Immanuel Quickley, Mitchell Robinson, and RJ Barrett are better building blocks than Simmons, Maxey, and Joe, then, by all means, make that trade, but I can’t really see any organization feeling that way, not even the New York Knicks.

And then comes the situation Lillard would arrive in if he was traded to either New York or Philadelphia. While New York has some nice veteran pieces who surely wouldn’t be included in a Lillard trade, players like Julius Randle and Derrick Rose, Philly would surely still boast a roster with Joel Embiid and Seth Curry in place, with the ability to trade Danny Green and/or Tobias Harris to procure different rotational pieces if they feel the roster needs tweaking around the new 0.

Considering players like Eric Gordon, Christian Wood, and Caris Levert could all be had for a mid-level return of picks and/or players – a list that will surely start to grow with more games played – there’s a very real chance the Sixers could enter the playoffs with a roster barely recognizable from opening night.

But, in the eyes of Morey, role players aren’t who win championships. Sure, I would imagine he’d like to get Gordon back under his control, as he was one of Houston’s best free agency additions over his tenure, but having him run the second-unit offense isn’t going to radically change the team’s playoff odds. No, the only way to do that is to transform Ben Simmons’ contract into an All-NBA player, which Lillard very much is.

On the November 29th episode of The Lowe Post podcast, Zach Lowe and Michael Schwartz discussed potential trade options surrounding Damian Lillard, with the duo suggesting that it might not take a full-on James Harden-level trade to get a deal done. Between you and me, I don’t believe that for a second. No, to secure Lillard’s services, the Philadelphia 76ers will surely have to give up Ben Simmons, Tyrese Maxey, and a ton of picks to get the deal done, with only marginal other players coming back to Philly to make the deal work. They’ll also surely have to give Lillard the biggest extension they can offer when he becomes extension eligible, which could keep him making crazy money until he’s in his year-36 season when he might not be the same-level player he is now. Is that the sort of deal Daryl Morey would like to swing, considering all of the variables? If his track record and current behavior are of any indication, the answer looks like a resounding yes.