Back in 2012, the Portland Trail Blazers selected a player who would turn out to be their new face of the franchise with the sixth overall pick in the NBA Draft. Point guard Damian Lillard joined the Blazers to team up with LaMarcus Aldridge and Portland would eventually be viewed as a force to be reckoned with once again in the Western Conference.
Fast forward to 2017, the Blazers are still a talented team but with Lillard leading the way alongside another talented guard in C.J. McCollum. This dynamic backcourt duo may have a promising future, but if at some point the Blazers want to move on from Lillard, the two-time NBA All-Star knows where he’d want to play.
In an exchange with one of his followers on Twitter, Lillard admitted that if the Blazers didn’t want him, he’d have two teams in mind:
If blazers said they didn't want me… Utah Jazz or Lakers https://t.co/jep3V9qRsS
— Damian Lillard (@Dame_Lillard) June 14, 2017
At this point, it doesn’t look like Lillard is going anywhere anytime soon. The rising star recently signed a new deal with the Blazers which will have him playing in Portland for the next four seasons. Lillard will become an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2021 after having made $31.6 million during the 2020-21 campaign.
Although it is nothing more than a pipedream and a hypothetical scenario, the Los Angeles Lakers brass have to like the fact a player of Lillard’s caliber would be interested in playing for the franchise if things don’t work out with his current team.
The way this league is these days, there’s no telling what could happen in the years to come. It may not be out of the realm of possibility that somehow Lillard ends up wearing purple and gold at some point during his career.