1 realistic Damian Lillard trade for every rumored suitor
NBA Rumors: Potential Blazers-Bulls trade for Damian Lillard
Dame trade to Bulls
The Chicago Bulls are completely directionless, clinging onto a failed core with no real hope of contending. This is easily the most depressing outcome for a hypothetical Lillard trade; he should be fighting tooth and nail to avoid Chicago sports purgatory.
Still, Lillard is enough of a game-changer for the Bulls to talk themselves into a trade. There's no way financially for both DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine to survive a deal; in this instance, DeRozan heads to Portland with an understanding that the Blazers will rope in a third team eager for veteran assistance. DeRozan's trade value is suspect, but he's coming off back-to-back All-Star nods. He can still help a team win, even if it's fair to wonder how adaptable his skill set is.
The Blazers' real prize here is the cache of draft capital from a Bulls team destined to flunk the Lillard-LaVine experiment. Patrick Williams doesn't get much shine for a recent No. 4 overall pick, but he has turned into a high-level wing defender with a bankable 3-point shot and some mid-range juice. He would form a solid defensive backbone in tandem with Jerami Grant.
Lillard and LaVine would stretch defenses thin and give the Bulls' offense genuine oomph. LaVine is a slippery driver who regularly pressures the rim and he can help ease Lillard's creation burden as the point guard ages. Nikola Vucevic is a skilled offensive big who can dominate mismatches in the post or run two-man actions with Lillard on the perimeter. There's decent connective tissue in place — Alex Caruso, Ayo Dosunmu, Coby White, and Jevon Carter can all play, but they're also all guards.
Chicago would need to swing another trade to bolster its wing depth, which gets tricky. The ideal pathway here is to not include Williams — or perhaps to center the trade on LaVine instead — but there's no way for the Bulls to trade for Lillard while maintaining credible frontcourt depth and fielding a quality defense. Billy Donovan is a defensive whiz who can tease competence out of the most improbable of lineups, but this would be a whole new challenge for him.