Lakers News: How LeBron James Tried To Court Damian Lillard To Join The Lakers In 2021
After nine years of loyal service, Portland Trail Blazers All-Star point guard Damian Lillard was fed up.
After a 42-30 season, the team fell 4-2 to the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the 2021 playoffs. Though the team may not have gone far, Lillard enjoyed a robust playoff performance personally, averaging 34.3 points on .465/.449/.940 shooting splits, plus, 10.2 assists, 4.3 rebounds, a steal and 0.7 blocks.
Lillard had grown frustrated that the team seemed to regress from its 2019 Western Conference Finals appearance.
“It just had reached the point where I was like, ‘Is what I want the same as what the organization wants?’” Lillard informed The Ringer's Logan Murdock in a new interview. “Do we actually want to win, or is it a situation where, ‘We’re going to be good enough, we know Dame is going to put his best foot forward and it’s going to be entertaining, we’re going to be competitive, we’re going to have a chance in the playoffs.’”
Murdock writes that (as Lillard has previously revealed), in the summer of 2021, Los Angeles Lakers small forward LeBron James invited Lillard to his Brentwood home to discuss leveraging a potential trade demand with the team that drafted, so that he could potentially link up with James and Davis to form a formidable Big Three in L.A.
“He was just like, ‘Pull up to the house,’” Lillard said. “And I’m like, shit, I’m out here. Tomorrow is the only day I ain’t got nothing planned out. I can pull up for a little bit.”
Lakers All-Star big man Anthony Davis joined James and Lillard at LBJ's home for Italian food and pricey wine to talk about what that Big Three could look like. “We just chopped it up just about the possibilities,” Lillard reflected.
“What’s going on with you?” Lillard said James asked him.
“And I was like, ‘I really don’t know what we’re doing,’” Lillard said. “It was just a conversation like that.”
“I wasn’t even looking at it like a recruiting process,” Lillard noted to Murdock. “The whole time I was like, ‘I play for the Blazers.’ My only point is, let’s give ourselves a chance. I wasn’t sending no shots or sending no threats. I’m just honest. When I get asked a question, I answer the question. Because these questions had never been asked.”
When Lillard decided to remain in Portland, the Lakers instead pivoted to trading for then-Washington Wizards point guard Russell Westbrook, and promptly went on to win an NBA title...
...Oh wait, we're reading that wrong, they went 33-49 and missed the playoffs.
