Trail Blazers rumors: Teams show interest in Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum

The latest Trail Blazers rumors, show significant interest around the league in Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum. Though the interest in Lillard is probably not surprising, fans can recognize that every NBA team unless your name is the Brooklyn Nets, are ready to pounce on a Dame trade if the season goes south.

The Sacramento Kings have shown interest in a potential Dame trade, but even if this season was to go bad and Dame requested a trade, I doubt that would be a destination that Dame’s people would agree on even if they had the best package. There’s no way Dame will end up on a team that has less chance to contend than the Blazers.

Though Basketballnews.com had this report, it was first reported by Kevin O’Connor of the Ringer. More recently though, Jason Quick of the Athletic reported that NBA teams are contacting Portland about McCollum, offering a top pick in the draft for him. ( article behind paywall. )

But, because they are in win-now mode, they haven’t entertained these offers, according to Quick. This makes sense. Why take a top lottery pick to bring in a guy who is 19? Dame wants to win now, so moving CJ for a young guy doesn’t make sense.

The NBA draft is still six days away, so there is ample time to get a deal done if the right package comes across Neil’s desk. The Blazers don’t have a first-round pick so will likely be looking to make moves using the salary of McCollum and one of their younger players to bring back a win-now guy.