NBA Rumors: Sixers 'Hoping' to Land Blazers' Damian Lillard

With just three NBA teams still alive this season, 27 other organizations are onto figuring out what moves they need to make to better their future. The Portland Trail Blazers started their offseason journey after losing in the first round of the playoffs.

The Philadelphia 76ers followed a couple of weeks later as they wrapped up their year prematurely after dropping Game 7 of the second-round series against the Atlanta Hawks. On Wednesday night, the Los Angeles Clippers became the latest team to find themselves eliminated from the postseason.

Like Portland and Philly, the Clippers have a lot of question marks on their roster moving forward. Therefore, The Ringer's Kevin O'Connor analyzed their situation and discussed some potential changes the Clippers could make to their roster.

One of the suggestions happened to involved making a trade for Sixers All-Star Ben Simmons. As Simmons just wrapped up a rough second-round series, his future in Philadelphia is currently in question. Considering Simmons has spent a lot of time in Los Angeles over the years and even reportedly just bought a brand new house out West, he could be a trade candidate for the Clippers.

But O'Connor questions whether the Clippers would want Simmons or not. And in the process of speculating potential interest in Simmons from a Clippers' standpoint, The Ringer writer threw in an interesting tidbit regarding the Sixers. According to O'Connor, the Sixers have hope of potentially landing Damian Lillard from the Blazers this year.

"There’s also Ben Simmons, the Sixers All-Star who spends nearly all of his off time in Los Angeles and would add a much-needed playmaking dimension to the Clippers. But regardless of the other pieces involved in a potential deal, would Leonard want to team up with Simmons after the latter’s disastrous postseason? Is that a deal the Sixers would want to make, when league sources say they’re also hoping for an opportunity to land Lillard?"

The Sixers' potential interest in Lillard is certainly not surprising. As Philly's front office craved landing a superstar ball-handler last year, they were in the mix for both the James Harden and Kyle Lowry sweepstakes.

After coming up short, the Sixers will more than likely be contenders in the market for Lillard if the Blazers do field calls for the veteran All-Star. If that's the case, the Sixers will have to save Simmons for a package to send to Portland -- leaving the potential of Simmons re-locating to LA permanently off the table.

Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for Sports Illustrated. You can follow him for live updates on Twitter: @JGrasso_