It’s no secret that Damian Lillard wants to compete for championships with the Portland Trail Blazers. The team’s All-Star guard has aspirations of lifting the Larry O’Brien trophy in the only city that he has called home during his NBA career, and one of the biggest storylines in the league over the summer was that Lillard wanted Portland to get into a position where its roster could do that.
Ultimately, the Blazers’ front office didn’t take any big swings to give him an All-Star running mate, and the team is currently a half game up on the final play-in spot in the Western Conference. The front office is, however, in the midst of a shakeup following the results of an independent investigation that led to longtime top executive Neil Olshey being removed from his position due to allegations that he fostered a hostile work environment.
On Tuesday, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN wrote a piece about the Blazers that suggested Lillard’s hopes for a 2-year, $107 million extension at the end of this season is scaring away some potential people who can take over for Olshey. It appears Lillard got word of the piece, as he shared a tweet that both implicated Wojnarowski and Olshey worked together to slander him and compared them to Donald Trump and Mike Pence.
Can’t say I’m surprised. https://t.co/AwOUKOfGQv
— Damian Lillard (@Dame_Lillard) December 7, 2021
The piece also reported that Lillard and his camp wanted the Blazers to part ways with CJ McCollum and four first-round picks to bring Ben Simmons to Portland. A report in The Athletic earlier this week indicated that Lillard would like to bring Simmons to Portland, but there were no indications he wanted the team to part ways with McCollum to make it happen — although, that is certainly the player that makes the most sense to be going out in such a deal.
