PHILADELPHIA — Somebody asked me the other day who Damian Lillard thinks he is. It was a great question. It has an unfortunate answer.
He’s an NBA superstar. Which means he gets what he wants.
You and I? We see a guy who is contractually obligated to play basketball for whatever NBA team owns his rights over the next four years. We see a guy who agreed to that contract less than a year ago. We see a guy who was well aware that the $122 million in additional guaranteed money he was accepting came with the stipulation that it could be reassigned to any other NBA team at virtually any other time. We see a guy who should be expected to abide by the terms of that contract.
But that’s not who Lillard is. That’s not how things work in the ol’ N-B-of-A.
Lillard is not going to be a Sixer.
Read it carefully. Say it slowly. Repeat to yourself in a monotone voice until your loved ones stage an intervention. The only way Lillard will be coming to Philly this fall is if he has tickets to the Made in America festival. Or maybe Jimmy Eat World at the Mann.
To quote another great American musician: That’s just the way it is. It was clear months ago, when Lillard listed the Miami Heat and the Brooklyn Nets as the two teams he’d be interested in playing for if he ever left Portland. It was clear a week ago, when the seven-time All-Star finally hit the Trail Blazers with an official trade request. And it was made doubly clear on Thursday, when Lillard’s agent confirmed to the Miami Herald that his client only wanted to play for the Heat. Anybody else who traded for him would be acquiring an unhappy player. In fact, the agent said, he’d already placed phone calls to several of those teams in order to advise them against it.
Were the Sixers one of those teams? Doesn’t matter. Wouldn’t matter even if Lillard was open to playing for the Sixers. Heck, it might not matter even if he wanted to play for the Sixers. The Sixers are in the same boat as the Heat, whose best offer for Lillard looks like a hungover GrubHub order. The most inconsequential debate on the planet is whether the Sixers should trade Tyrese Maxey for Lillard. The real question is whether Daryl Morey would even get a return phone call.
Keep in mind, Lillard is one of the five singularly transformative players to hit the trade market in the last decade. Kevin Durant is No. 1. Kawhi Leonard is No. 2. Lillard and James Harden are Nos. 3 and 4. Kyrie Irving warrants some consideration. You can argue Anthony Davis, but I won’t.
The exact order doesn’t matter. Point is, these players were the cream of the crop, the kinds of players whom conventional wisdom regarded as insta-contenders. That’s what Lillard is. He has his on-court flaws, as pretty much all of these guys did except Durant and Leonard. But he has a skill set that does not come around very often. Even before this season, he was one of the top handful of isolation scorers in NBA history. Combine that with 38% 3-point shooting and 7.6 assists per game and he’s pretty much what Harden was during his peak years in Houston. Plus, he’s coming off a season in which he averaged a career-high 32.2 points.
Look at what the Nets traded for Harden a few years ago: seven first-round picks plus two good young players in Jarrett Allen and Caris LeVert.
Look at what the Suns traded for Durant this past season: four first-round picks, a pick swap, one of the best young two-way players in the game in Mikal Bridges, and a young player in Cameron Johnson who just signed a four-year contract at $25 million-plus per year.
Even if you think Maxey has more value than Bridges — which he doesn’t — the Sixers would need to open up a crypto exchange in order to conjure up the sort of assets that might make Portland think. They currently have one future first-round pick that they are able to trade, plus four pick swaps. The Sixers don’t have anything else. Unless Furkan Korkmaz was right all along about his market value, I guess Morey can always try saying “abracadabra.”
Given the circumstances, it’s difficult to take the Maxey hypothetical seriously. There’s just too much that says it won’t happen.
You can argue that the Sixers could outbid the Heat, who have Tyler Herro and Caleb Martin and a couple of first-round picks to offer. Maxey is an excellent young player who has outperformed expectations at every stage of his development. It shouldn’t surprise anyone if he suddenly develops the change-of-pace ballhandling, passing, awareness and/or finishing in traffic that he needs in order to become a true centerpiece player. I don’t think he is stout enough to ever become an elite defender. I do think he is better than people give him credit for, and that he will only continue to improve.
But this isn’t about the Heat. The whole premise is that Lillard might play elsewhere. The Sixers would also have to outbid the Nets, who have Bridges and Johnson and a bunch of first-round picks. They’d also have to outbid all of the other destinations that have plenty more to offer. Even if all that happened, they’d still be trading for a player whose agent is actively warning teams that he won’t be happy playing for them.
There are scenarios where trading Maxey makes sense. Maybe the Blazers play hardball and Lillard decides that the Sixers are a better option than finishing out his career in Portland. Hey, maybe Jimmy Butler decides he’d rather play with Joel Embiid than Lillard and Maxey makes that switcheroo happen. As the facts stand now? The Sixers would be foolish to gamble their one remaining chance at Process redemption on a player who could be in-and-out faster than Harden.
Which brings us back to our original question. Why is Lillard acting as if he can call his own shot?
Because it works.
