Kawhi Leonard is the case for why a team other than the Heat should trade for Damian Lillard

The risk of trading for Damian Lillard may be worth it for the right team.

Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win’s basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Have feedback for the Layup Lines Crew? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey. Now, here’s Prince J. Grimes.

Another day, another Damian Lillard trade rumor — or two.

Now two weeks away from the start of NBA training camps, with time running out for the Portland Trail Blazers to avoid chaos with Lillard still on the roster, there hasn’t been much news on his potential move to the Miami Heat. But lately reports have been trickling out of other teams considering a Lillard trade.

On a recent episode of ESPN’s NBA Today, league insider Marc J. Spears said the Blazers have been talking to several teams about trading for Lillard, suggesting someone other than Miami may be interested in taking the risk of bringing in a player who may not want to be there. And make no mistake, it would be a risk. As ESPN’s Zach Lowe said, per the Miami Herald, a general manager asked him, “Are we going to turn into a weigh station for Damian Lillard until he gets to where he wants to go?”

In that same story, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski is quoted as saying, “I think there are teams that will trade for him. But it’s a little bit of a negotiating crutch where you tell Portland, ‘Hey, I’m not offering you everything we might because we’re taking risk here.’”

And that’s the problem right there. Lillard wants to play for the Heat, and the Heat want Lillard — at a cost they like. They’re daring Portland to find a better deal, and it seems that’s what Portland is doing. Sports Illustrated senior writer Chris Mannix tossed out the Oklahoma City Thunder as a potential fit. Action Network writer Matt Moore said several teams in the East have kicked the tires on a Lillard trade, including the Toronto Raptors.

If true, it should be no surprise the Raptors are one of the teams willing to take that risk, because they did it once before and it led to their only championship in franchise history. When Kawhi Leonard requested a trade from the San Antonio Spurs, his preferred destination was reportedly Los Angeles — where he ultimately ended up. But in his one-year stop with the Raptors, they were able to win a championship together, making the move well worth it for Toronto.

This situation isn’t exactly apples to apples, especially considering Lillard is locked into his contract through at least the 2025-26 season. But it serves as an example of the upside for a team determining whether they should make a move. Lillard is really good, and if you believe your team is an elite scorer away from competing for a championship, it’s probably worth it.

While Lillard may eventually request a trade, it doesn’t seem likely he’d be a diva and throw a fit in the time between that happening. In a recent appearance on It Is What It Is, when asked about tactics used by players like James Harden to get their way in trade requests, Lillard said “just because somebody else is willing to go whatever route they go, it’s certain things I’m just not gonna do because it ain’t a part of who I am.”

If I’m a contending team, that would be enough for me to seriously consider trading for Lillard.

Fans of the New York Knicks and Rangers have been begging owner James Dolan to sell the team for years, decades even. They don’t like the man, and by the way he’s run his teams, I can’t say he likes them much either.

But it’s been a problem for awhile now. So much so that fans can’t even bring signs into Madison Square saying he needs to sell the team — or they risk being permanently banned thanks to the facial recognition technology he has installed at the arena.

Yeah, it’s that bad.

So imagine the spit in the face it must’ve been for those same fans when Dolan admitted in a recent New York Times profile that he doesn’t even like owning sports teams. No, seriously, he said that. FTW’s Mike Sykes wrote all about it. Check that out.

Dolan cited the economics of sports as the reason for that particular comment, but elsewhere in the profile, he kind of made sports ownership seem like more of a hassle than anything. It’s a headache he could easily rid himself of — while grabbing a few billion dollars in the process — but he just refuses to. So, instead, he remains a headache for everyone else.

It’s honestly not all that surprising to hear. Sports franchises are assets that don’t come available that often. Owners aren’t just lining up to sell their teams, and I’d imagine not many of these billionaires are as enamored with their teams as we’d like to believe they are. But the audacity for him to say that out loud knowing exactly how people feel about him is kind of shocking.

Shootaround

— Victor Wembanyama is committed to France for the Paris Olympics and he’s going for gold

— HoopsHype’s projected depth charts for each NBA team this upcoming season

— Damian Lillard thinks Kyrie Irving has the most beautiful game in NBA history

And that’s it from me, y’all. Catch you next week.