Portland’s own Kawhi Leonard trade
What the Portland Trail Blazers would be best served to do now is to acknowledge that even though the roster surrounding Damian Lillard may have peaked, the point guard is a generational talent who is still in his prime.
Lillard has said all the right things and that he wants to remain in Portland for the rest of his career, and more importantly, wants to win there too.
That’s what can’t be undervalued here, even if Portland traded away Lillard and others and got back real elite talent, they would never know if those players would want to play their careers in Portland.
What the Blazers should do is make the risky move that puts them all in similar to the one Masai Ujiri made in trading for Kawhi Leonard. Sure, he didn’t know if Kawhi was ever going to stay but it raised the Raptors ceiling, the risk paid off and the team won a championship.
The Portland Trail Blazers can do the same by looking right now to a team in the East who much like the Blazers have well underperformed.