 What's the word y'all? This is my favorite time of the season, though the NBA Finals are going on and it's been cool. Y'all know offseason, trades, rumors, all of that stuff is what I really enjoyed the most. And today I woke up to a report that Damien Liller might be requesting a trade over the next couple of days. And I say might be because at the end of the day these are all just rumors. And our job as people that love the NBA is to overreact to some of these rumors. So today is that day. I forget exactly where I was at. I was talking about Zach Levine being a part of Team USA and how exciting it was for the Chicago Bulls fans because, well, that's a big accomplishment, even though they haven't looked necessarily amazing. It's a big accomplishment for one of our guys to be a part of the Olympic team. But the one thing I say was like, Zach Levine has to go there and not be the recruited. And Damien Liller might have went to Team USA and became the recruited and came to the realization that maybe Portland ain't the place. Now again, these are all completely rumors. This could be completely capped. I just want to talk about potential Damien Liller places because as we know, the Portland Trail Blazers have been a good team for multiple, multiple years. Even got a conference finals appearance under their belt. But it seems like this team had maxed out, right? With Damien, CJ and the backcourt for their entire existence as a team, people have wondered how successful can a team be with two small guards? Oh my God, Kenny said they small guards. Man, people were mad at me because I caught them small guards, even though Damien Liller is big for his position as a point guard. We're still talking about two small guards in the grand scheme of guards. Just having two guards that are six or small, they really hurts the defense at the end of the day. And that's what exactly what we saw, especially when you're going against teams that teams are getting bigger nowadays. You know what I'm saying? Luka Dodgers being a point guard is huge. The only team that I'm looking at the standings in the Western Conference right now, the only team that has like two small guards that were successful were the Utah Jazz. You know, they end up being the onesie with Donovan Mitchell and Mike Connelly, but they also had the defensive player of the year whether you like it or not. You know what I'm saying? They were able to anchor their defense with the defensive player of the year and the Portland Trailblazers never had that high caliber defensive player alongside those dudes. They tried it, right? Robert Coveton is a guy that's got all defensive votes in his career. Yusuf Nurkis wasn't a bad defender. Then he snapped his leg and came back and wasn't the same. So the Portland Trailblazers as an organization, I would say has tried to put together a competent and a championship quality team around Damian Lillar, but they haven't been successful. And now it seems like the tree is barren, right? Damian Lillar is a guy we can look at at this point. And even if he requests us to trade tomorrow, we can't be upset with him because he has been the definition of loyal to where it started. And you can admire that. And yeah, the Portland Trailblazers could make some retoolings that don't deal with getting rid of Damian Lillar, whether that's CJ McCullum's trade, the use of Nurkis trade, yadda yadda yadda. I don't think there's any other trade out there that can make them a championship contender alongside Damian Lillar. So the writing is on the wall for the Portland Trailblazers. Again, we are talking about rumors, so they might not trade Damian Lillar. They might come back next season and be completely the same. I don't know. I've always been going to show this that there is value in being a good team. You know, maybe the Portland Trailblazers don't trade Damian Lillar and they're never a championship team. They're still value in just being good. You know, if Damian Lillar retires his whole career with the Portland Trailblazers and never won a championship, I think we still look at those years and say like, yeah, they didn't get the ring, but there were the good years in there and that could be the conference finals appearance and this and that. But now we said that, let's talk about some potential trades because that's what we're here for. Damian Lillar is gonna be the biggest name potentially on the market because the free agency class is not as great. You know, you got Kawhi Leonard, but with him having that injury and that surgery, I would assume that he's coming back to the Clippers and getting healthy on their dime and, you know what I'm saying, and I switch the teams. So it really is Damian Lillar via trade that can really determine next year's champion because that's how nice of a player Damian Lillar is. So I went onto Twitter and I asked people to send me Damian Lillar trades. And you know what? I looked through a few of them. Not great. Everybody on Twitter, including me, can't be general managers. You know, it's tough being a general manager because you have to convince yourself that both teams get what they want, even if they don't. So let's take a look at some of the trades that people sent to me. This was from Tyler. He said, maybe some more picks or something. IDK just threw this together like 10 seconds. Also like Max Kellerman's trade idea. I don't know what Max Kellerman's been talking about. Somebody would have to send me that. But let's talk about the Nuggets potential deal. Now this is something that I saw or heard on Zaclos podcast. This was maybe three or four weeks ago when they were potentially talking about Damian Lillar trades. And here's the argument for it and then the argument against it. That's the way I'm gonna play these things. The argument for and the argument against. And you decide what you believe is the best potential trade package for Damian Lillar, right? The argument for, right? The Portland Trailblazers get a player like Jamal Murray, who we all know is really good and has all stark potential. But Jamal Murray probably won't play Latin next season because he's Taurus ACL. So why does that allow the Portland Trailblazers to do next season? Be terrible. Be assed. They get to be really, really bad. Get a top five pick and then you pair that top five pick next season. The year after that with Jamal Murray, you allow Bo Bo to potentially spread his wings because once upon a time Bo Bo is supposed to be the next comment of I don't know who. And I would guess, I mean, you couldn't throw 2021 and 2022 in there. But I would guess you would want, if you're the Portland Trailblazers, more picks than just two at any, in any Damian Lillar trade, unless you're getting back an all-star caliber player and in this trade you're not doing that. That's the argument for it for the Trailblazers. We can suck next season, top five pick and then we have Jamal Murray, top five pick and whatever else we get if we try to trade CJ or we trade use of Nurkitz. The argument against it is, okay, now what? Next year's draft class might not be as amazing as this year's draft class. You're throwing me your first round pick this year and that ain't value because you were one of the best teams in the league. If we're gonna bottom out, I think we might want a top pick this year considering how stacked this draft class could really be. And as I'm recording this video, ladies and gentlemen, I just got an update that says Damian Lillar tells Yahoo where he's currently stands with Portland. He's scheduled to talk to the media later today. Well, that throws a rinse in my video because maybe in two hours he goes to the podium and say, I'm here to stay forever or he could say, yeah, I'm requesting the trade publicly. If he publicly requested a trade like in front of media on TV, not on TV, I guess, but in front of media, that would be crazy because typically if somebody's requesting a trade, they just go into the offices of their general manager to say, get me out of here, not with microphones and stuff, it's gonna be interesting. I'm very excited to see what he says in their press conference. This one comes from Jordan. It is Damian Lillar for Ben Simmons, Matisse Stibald, Tyrese Maxi and four first round picks. That is a plethora of picks. That is a 24-year-old Ben Simmons, a 25-year-old Ben Simmons. That is Matisse Stibald, who is one of the most destructive defenders in the league already. And that is Tyrese Maxi, who showed as a rookie that he's probably gonna be pretty good. And this is what he said. I think this is good for both teams. E-B and B gets a perimeter go-to player and the trailblazers get to see if Ben Simmons can get a team built around here, drive capital, yada, yada, yada. This feels, and call me crazy, this feels like this might be just a tad bit much when you consider three young players and then four first round picks. But maybe that's the going price. Maybe it is. You're not trading, this is what makes this trade or the Damian Lillar trade thing different than other star players that have been traded. Damian Lillar is under contract for a very, very long time. He just is. It's not like the trade for a guy that's under a one plus one, like Anthony Davis, this is a, hey, whoever trades for Dame has him for the next four seasons. So let's pay like we have him for four seasons. And when you think about it like that, maybe it's not as bad to throw in everything. Because Joel and Bede and Damian Lillar is good enough to win the Eastern Conference. I'm just saying it. It's good, healthy, obviously. I don't know why I gotta throw that caveat in there but people be taking things so literal. Healthy, Damian Lillar and Joel and Bede should be good enough to win the Conference. Now, Daryl Maury has never been a person that is afraid to trade away all his picks. Remember, he tried to throw four first round picks at the Minnesota Timberwolves to get Jimmy Butler into Houston. Him giving away four first round picks, that's possible. It definitely, definitely is possible. But when you're paying four first round picks with Ben Simmons, Matisse Diboy, Maxie might be a tad bit too much. If I'm the trailblazers and this offers come to me and Damian Lillar tells me he wants out, I accept immediately because we have an all-star, all-defensive defensive player to your player who's under contract for four seasons. We have another great defensive player who might be all defensive team. Again, we get another young player and then a ton of, ton of picks and we can bottom out a little bit. Now, this one comes from Biff. Biff gave us three different trade offers and we gon' see, y'all let me know which one y'all liked the most. The Warriors package is so intriguing. It's so intriguing. Honestly, I would want both of the first round picks for this season. The Warriors, you don't get to keep both of them if I'm giving you Damian Lillar, right? I think that the Blazers might be a team that's like, ah, we might want to trade him away to an Eastern Conference team so he don't get to kill us four times a year so our fans can be reminded what we gave up, you know what I'm saying? I think you trade him to an Eastern Conference team but the Warriors having Wiseman, Wiggins, 7, what is it, 7 and what else? I want 7 and 14 and a pick next season if that's possible or the year after that. That's such an intriguing package because though James Wiseman didn't look amazing in his rookie season, you have to remember the man barely played in college and even barely played in high school, he don't have that many games under his belt and he still looked pretty solid. You give him to a place as Portland where he can really develop. You bring in Wiggins as really just a contract filler. He'll be off the books in a few years and then you get the picks. 7, 14, I might actually, 7, 14 and a couple more. Legitimately. Why do the Warriors want Damian Lillard? Just get more talent. I don't know how they start. Dude, they start Dame. Oh my God, defensively that team might be bad. Dame, Steph Curry, Clay, Dreymon and whoever sounds amazing, offensive. They might score 120 points per game. The Warriors trade package is very intriguing but again, they may not want to trade him to the Warriors because they will dominate the Conference for the next couple of years. This heat trade don't seem very realistic to me. Especially considering the heat, don't really have that many picks. They'd have to go so far into the future and I don't know if that's even legal. So I'll skip that one. But the Blazers one is interesting because one of the things I said on our podcast that we were talking about potential Dame trades. If I have to trade Dame, I want a player that I know is an all-star caliber player already. I'm talking the likes of Jaylen Brown. I'm talking the likes of Brandon Ingram. Brandon Ingram, Nikio Alexander Walker in two first round picks is a okay package to get back. You get a player who's been an all-star. He even had a good season last year. He was an all-star but he had a good season last year. Nikio Alexander Walker has amazing potential in two first round picks. I might even ask for three because in this case, I know you don't really have a ton of leverage because Dame might walk in and say he wants to be traded but the Pelicans need to do something. They might be willing to give you three first round picks especially when you consider that they have a bunch of first round picks from the Lakers deal. So you might be able to get more than just two first round picks in this trade. You get an all-star and now the Portland Trail Blazers have a Brandon Ingram and this could be more of a retooling than a bottoming out because Brandon Ingram, if you still keep CJ and you still keep Yousef Nurkitsch who already said that he might wanna be traded if Dame gets traded, whatever. You're still a okay team. You're not a bottom five team anymore. You know what I'm saying? You're still a okay team but for the Pelians to have Dame and Zion, you should be a playoff team. I'm even seeing more trades and this is from the Golden State Warriors subreddit. This is the best possible package the Warriors can put together for Dame and Lillard or another star, Wiggs, Wiseman, Poole, 714. They can also trade their 2022, a pick swap, a pick swap, a whole first, a whole first and a pick swap. Hey, if this is the offer I'm getting for the Trailblazers, I'm sorry, I have to say yes. Do you see this? Do you see this? Yeah, I'm gonna have to say yes to that, bro. Will Dame and Lillard be traded? We don't know. It's fun to talk about though. Let me know what you think is the best potential package that Comment Section is open even if you agree to disagree with stuff I said in this video. Hopefully you did enjoy it and I'll see y'all soon. Hopefully we get more rumors. Maybe we even film another video after Dame and Lillard does whatever he's gonna do.