NBA rumors: 5 teams that should call Blazers about Damian Lillard trade

1. New York Knicks

The New York Knicks are notorious for blindly trading for older point guards past their primes, but Damian Lillard doesn’t fit that description. With Julius Randle proving in the playoffs that he’s probably not a No. 1 option if you want your team to legitimately contend, Lillard would be a godsend for a franchise that’s been missing superstar talent ever since Carmelo Anthony left.

However, the Knicks are also a tricky trade partner at the moment, because half their guys will be hitting free agency this summer. Randle is under contract, but the Knicks would try to hold onto him. If that’s the case, it’d be nearly impossible to facilitate a deal without Portland getting RJ Barrett, Mitchell Robinson and maybe even Obi Toppin or Immanuel Quickley in return. The Blazers would ask for as many young cornerstones as possible, unless the Knicks were willing to counter with a barrage of first-round picks to make up for it.

For the first time in forever, the Knicks don’t owe anyone their future first-rounders, and they actually own a pair of extra firsts from the Dallas Mavericks thanks to the Kristaps Porzingis trade. Between that and 2-3 promising youngsters, they could find a way to put a deal together … just as long as everyone’s comfortable with the reality that a Big 3 of Randle, Barrett and Dame would never materialize. One of those two Knicks centerpieces would have to go.

For the Blazers, they’d be getting a ton of draft picks and a couple of young players with immense upside — preferably Barrett, Robinson and one of Quickley/Toppin. That may not be the best deal on the market, but it’s a pretty competitive one, and it’d get Lillard to a playoff-caliber team in a major market where he could do a better job of attractive fellow talent than Olshey did in Portland.