In making a pair of first-round picks Thursday night, the Portland Trail Blazers have finally picked a path. They are going young and building for the future. Now it’s up to Damian Lillard to decide if that’s a path he wants to accompany the Blazers on.
Through the end of a disappointing and miserable season, Lillard made his viewpoint clear. He wants the Blazers to make the most of his prime years and win now and outright stated he did not have the patience for a rebuild.
The Blazers, holding the ammo of two first-round draft picks and young players to make a trade to get him the veteran help he requested, instead used those picks to add to their stable of young talent.
Those veterans Lillard asked for? They are not coming. Just months after their star player explicitly said he doesn’t want to see the team going with a youth movement and bringing in 19-year-olds, the team went with a youth movement and made 19-year-old guard Scoot Henderson the No. 3 pick in the draft. However, that’s not even the real kick in the shins to Lillard’s hopes. The team also held the No. 23 pick in the draft and owe the Chicago Bulls a lottery-protected first-round pick. Owing a pick to Chicago severely hamstrings the Blazers’ ability to trade future first-round picks for veteran players, so the No. 23 pick would have been a natural choice to be able to not only draft the best player available in Henderson but also to clear their debt with the Bulls and be able to acquire the veterans Lillard has asked for possibly. Instead, the team used the pick to take Kris Murray, a developmental project power forward.
The team has its guards of the future in Shaedon Sharpe, Anfernee Simons, and No. 3 pick Scoot Henderson. Unless the Blazers want to play an “oops, all guards” lineup, there is no reason for those three to exist on the same roster as Lillard unless Lillard wants it to be that way. With four of the best players with the brightest futures on the roster all playing similar roles, something will have to give. It’s just a matter of when or how.
The Blazers have been in a similar position before. In 2012 they passed on the opportunity to add veteran talent around LaMarcus Aldridge in his prime and instead drafted a shooting guard out of Weber State. Aldridge and budding superstar Damian Lillard co-existed for three years before Aldridge departed to seek green pastures in San Antonio.
Lillard may very well choose a similar path, giving the Blazers’ new young core a chance to show what it can do before he makes any final decision on his future. However, what has been made clear is that Lillard doesn’t possess the leverage he thought he did. The Blazers responded to his ultimatum by doing the exact thing he asked them not to do. He has yet to lure a marquee talent to Portland through free agency or trade to be his running mate.
Now with the Blazers already strapped for salary cap space heading into free agency, it appears the best he’ll be able to hope for next year is that the Blazers bring back forward Jerami Grant, maybe find a few veterans on smaller deals and possibly find a trade partner to dump Jusuf Nurkic. Otherwise, the plan appears to be to run it back, with essentially the same roster with the additions of Henderson and fellow first-round pick Kris Murray under the tutelage of coach Chauncey Billups.
Henderson may prove to be a transcendent guard, but to demonstrate that, he will need to be on the court, and unless the Blazers make a surprising move soon, that will come at the expense of either Lillard’s playing time or the continued development of Simons and Sharpe. Lillard is undoubtedly a veteran, but in no way is he ready to settle into a “veteran mentor” role yet, nor should he be expected to be. He’s capable of dropping 60-plus points a night, taking quality shots to get those points, and driving a dagger into the hearts of opponents. If he keeps doing that, at least one member of the Blazers’ future will be sitting on the bench. If that gets the Blazers to a deep playoff run, you won’t hear anyone complaining. But if the team returns to the same struggles as last season, and key pieces of the future are still riding the pine, you can be there will be grumbling, probably from all quarters.
If Lillard wants to give the Blazers a chance to see how their young talent shakes out, that’s his right. Frankly, Blazers fans should hope he does. The man will forever be a franchise icon and probably the greatest player ever to wear the Blazer uniform.
But if he doesn’t, and he wants out of Portland to seek an elusive ring and cement his legacy, that’s his right too, and Blazers fans should respect it. He has given his all to take the team as far as he can, often carrying them alone on his shoulders. Then he finally asked the team to get him some veteran players to help lighten the load and commit to winning now.
On Thursday, the Blazers gave him his answer.
No.
