Report: Teams Offer Blazers Lottery Pick in Exchange for C.J. McCollum
Despite a frustrated Damian Lillard's public and pointed demand for change, all intel still suggests the Trail Blazers will stick with the roster status quo heading into next season.
Jason Quick of The Athletic published a story on Thursday detailing Portland's plan of attack in the upcoming NBA draft and free agency. Though the report lent further credence to the Blazers retaining their core in the face of Lillard's calls for major personnel upgrades, one tidbit about a theoretical trade provides a lens into the thinking of Neil Olshey and the front office.
According to Quick, the Blazers have rebuffed offers a first-round pick in exchange for C.J. McCollum from teams selecting in the top half of the draft on July 29.
Teams are calling the Blazers and asking for CJ McCollum and, in return, offering Portland a chance to get into the top part of the draft. But Portland is not entertaining those offers because they are in a win-now phase and looking for veterans more than rookies to build around.
Portland is absent a first-round pick this year after sending a pair of them to the Houston Rockets last November for Robert Covington. The Blazers don't have a second-round selection, either, though Quick reports that Neil Olshey has eyes on acquiring one before the draft.
The notion that Portland isn't interested in moving McCollum for a lottery pick is hardly surprising. Conventional wisdom says the team would only seriously entertain such a deal after Lillard officially demands a trade or has already been dealt for a king's ransom.
Still, with the Blazers staring at their most drastic organizational crossroads since 2015, the knowledge that teams picking toward the top of the draft are placing lottery value on McCollum is certainly worth remembering. Portland is much closer to a full-scale teardown than the current composition of its roster suggests. Norman Powell signing elsewhere in free agency, for instance, could be the alarm that causes Lillard to abruptly rethink playing at least one more year in Rip City.
Should that development or another similarly drastic one come to pass, it will only be a matter of time until the Blazers initiate a firesale—and netting even a late lottery pick for McCollum would be a boon of a start to it.