The Portland Trail Blazers are in an intriguing situation with Damian Lillard where they are trying to assemble a roster around him that can compete immediately, but the No. 3 pick is viewed internally as too valuable to trade due to the quality of the draft. At this point, the Blazers haven’t received any compelling offers for the selection.
“Contrary to what people think, if the draft were tonight, they’re making that pick,” said Jonathan Givony on Zach Lowe’s podcast. “Unless something crazy comes up. Some type of trade that you just can’t say ‘no’ to. At this stage, they haven’t had anywhere near that level of conversation to get fair value for that pick.
“You very rarely have a chance to get that type of talent, like a Brandon Miller or a Scoot Henderson, in Portland. So they’re not just going to pass up on that unless something absolutely incredible comes out of thin air, which doesn’t appear the case right now.”
“I think some teams that have players that they’re interested in have kind of turned their noses up at the idea of a package of Simons and No. 3,” replied Zach Lowe. “And I wonder how much of that is at least semi-posturing. I asked a lot of people a very simple question yesterday, a lot of people around the league. Normally, there’s a cliff between No. 1 and everything else. And we overvalue draft picks for the post part, although the top-5 are pretty valuable. I asked ‘Is this No. 3 pick, given it could be Scoot, it could be Brandon Miller, is it more valuable than the average No. 3 pick?’ And the answer was almost universally ‘Yes.’
“On Simons, every team would want Sharpe over Simons. The Blazers are keeping Sharpe as far as I know. No one is untouchable, untouchable, but that’s pretty damn close.”
While Lillard has a stated preference to win now, it is not believed he is putting pressure on the Blazers to trade the No. 3 pick for the best available package and that his situation won’t change if they keep either Henderson or Miller.
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