Lakers Rumors: Franchise was interested in Damian Lillard

Recent Lakers rumors are that they wanted to pair Damian Lillard with LeBron James before they traded for Anthony Davis.

With the NBA Playoffs underway, there haven’t been too many Lakers rumors about the upcoming offseason or the draft, as the franchise is focused on winning.

Recently, the Lakers were able to beat the Portland Trail Blazers in 5 games. The Trail Blazers put a little scare into the Lakers in Game 1, but the Lakers went on to win 4 straight games.

For the Trail Blazers, they have been led by Damian Lillard the last few years, as he has emerged as one of the best players in the league. Lillard has had some wild games where he seemingly just carries his team to a win.

However, in the series against the Lakers, Lillard suffered a knee injury in Game 4 and was unable to play in Game 5. With the Trail Blazers’ season over, recent rumors are that the Lakers tried to pair up.

According to Sam Amick of The Athletic, the Lakers were interested in pairing Lillard with James prior to getting Davis in the summer of 2019. You can ready the entire article with a paid subscription to The Athletic here.

With Davis now on the Lakers and Lillard signing an extension with Portland, we can likely assume that he won’t be coming to the Lakers anytime soon now. However, the thought of Lillard and LeBron together would have been very interesting.

This season, James has really embraced the role of being the primary playmaker for the Lakers. However, if he was paired with Lillard, it would have been very interesting to see how the two would have played with each other.

Considering how well both players are on offense, it likely would have been a rather smooth transition like it has been with James and Davis, but it certainly would have been a different look.

For the Lakers, things have obviously worked out for them with Davis on the team. However, it is always fun to think about what it could have been.