By Ric Bucher
FOX Sports NBA Writer
Entering this season, Damian Lillard had two wishes: to stay in Portland and to not go through a rebuild.
Now he has to choose. One league source says he already has.
"Damian," the source said, "approves everything that happens there."
Over the past week, interim GM Joe Cronin, in his third month on the job, has flipped nearly half the roster by trading six players, including 2013 first-round pick CJ McCollum, one of the team’s cornerstones. The moves allow the Trail Blazers to avoid paying the luxury tax this season, reduce future committed salaries and acquire draft picks and young talent on rookie contracts.
There’s a word for all that in the NBA: rebuild.
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Lillard, the team’s six-time All-Star point guard and face of the franchise, expressed his frustration last summer about being unable to compete for a championship in Portland. The team has made a league-leading eight consecutive playoff appearances but has gone as far as the Western Conference finals only once in that span.
The complaint piqued the interest of several teams' decision-makers, including Philadelphia 76ers team president Daryl Morey and Lakers star LeBron James. Morey floated the possibility of an exchange of disgruntled point guards, moving his, Ben Simmons, in exchange for Lillard. James, meanwhile, met with Lillard to discuss getting him to Los Angeles to join forces.
All of which had speculation about whether Lillard would demand a trade running rampant for most of the offseason. But in late October, Lillard told The Athletic that he had made up his mind to stay in Portland after the team hired rookie head coach and former championship-winning point guard Chauncey Billups.
"Everybody is saying what they think I’m thinking, and what they think I’m going to do, but like, I’m not leaving Portland, you know?" Lillard said. "A big part of [my change in mindset] was me and Chauncey’s conversations, and where we see things the same. It’s not often when I speak to people that they see what I see. Watching a game, observing people … there’s not many people who see what I see. But a lot of what I see, he sees. So that was very important to me."
There were more than a few skeptics in the media — inside and outside of Portland — who thought Lillard might still have a change of heart if this season didn’t result in a deep, or deeper, playoff run. The belief was that with Lillard being 31 years old, having suffered the first significant injury of his career — an abdominal strain that required surgery — and playing on a team on pace to post the worst winning percentage of his tenure, the franchise icon's patience would run out.
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Now that the team has been overhauled, Lakers fans appear to be in a frenzy for James to make another call to Lillard to see if he has changed his mind.
What the skeptics — and Lakers fans — fail to take into account (and Lillard has not) is how Lillard's entire persona is built on being the loyal, overlooked star lifting an underdog to unexpected heights.
He did it growing up in Oakland playing for the AAU Rebels rather than the Nike-sponsored Soldiers and then by going to, and staying at, Weber State, despite options to bolt to bigger programs. And while the Blazers’ current run of eight playoff appearances has been categorized as underachieving because only three times did they advance past the first round, in the nine seasons prior to Lillard’s arrival, Portland made the playoffs just three times, all first-round exits.
A source familiar with the situation believes two opposing players have had a bigger impact on Lillard’s thinking than anything he has in common with Billups: former Blazers forward LaMarcus Aldridge and Phoenix Suns point guard Chris Paul.
Aldridge was a Blazers franchise cornerstone before Lillard arrived. After five playoff appearances and four first-round exits in nine seasons in Portland, Aldridge escaped via free agency to San Antonio for a better chance at a championship, playing alongside Tim Duncan and Kawhi Leonard.
Aldridge and the Spurs went to the playoffs four consecutive years, including a run to the Western Conference finals, but his hopes for a ring never came to fruition. Plus, he experienced, for the first time, what it was like to not be one of the team’s biggest stars. In short, the reason for moving to Texas never materialized.
Lesson for Lillard: There is no guarantee that going to a championship-caliber franchise will result in a championship. Plus, there is a price to be paid for joining another star’s team, a price that would be far greater even than the one Aldridge paid because Lillard has made a fortune off the court based on his persona as the loyal David waging war with the Goliaths.
The impact of Paul’s recent experience might have been even more profound. Paul reached the Finals for the first time in his 16-year career last summer, and with the Suns sporting the best record in the league right now, he appears to have an excellent shot at getting back there this year. It was not that long ago that it appeared Paul’s best chance of ever winning a ring had already evaporated. But thanks to his dedication to staying as fit as possible, Paul, at 36, is getting a second chance with a young Suns team.
Lillard, having the same dedication to his body, has every reason to believe he can extend his ability to lead a championship team into his late 30s as well, giving the Blazers ample time to rebuild around him.
"It has to be Damian has given them permission to do this," a source familiar with Lillard’s thinking said. "What Damian is looking at is the CP3 example."
That includes making a franchise-cornerstone salary. Paul signed a four-year, $120 million extension last summer, and while only the first two years are fully guaranteed, the deal assures him a hefty salary as he closes in on 40, remarkable for any player but especially so for a point guard. Lillard signed a super-max deal in 2019 worth $196 million that will make him the first player to make $50 million in a season. The deal runs through 2024-25, and he is eligible for a two-year extension worth another $107 million that would guarantee he continues to be paid in excess of $50 million even as he turns 37.
The expectation is that the Blazers will encourage him to take the rest of this season off, allowing the team to plummet in the standings and angle for a top-five pick in the draft. Then the team would give Lillard that extension next summer in exchange for enduring at least another season of development.
The danger, of course, is that small-market teams that opt to rebuild sometimes never escape that stage. See the Orlando Magic, Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder for examples. While the trades over the past week should provide ample salary-cap room, Portland has not exactly been a destination for superstar free agents, offering no guarantee that the Blazers can pair Lillard with a star of equal caliber.
The belief is that, deep down, Lillard understands that — and is willing to get paid handsomely to take that risk.
Ric Bucher is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. He previously wrote for Bleacher Report, ESPN The Magazine and The Washington Post and has written two books, "Rebound," the story of NBA forward Brian Grant’s battle with young onset Parkinson’s, and "Yao: A Life In Two Worlds," the story of NBA center Yao Ming. He also has a daily podcast, "On The Ball with Ric Bucher." Follow him on Twitter @RicBucher.
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