Blazers Could Trade High Draft Pick, Per Report

ThePortland Trail Blazerswant to win, and they want to do it now.

While the Blazers sit at home for the playoffs for a second straight year, the offseason is all about retooling around Damian Lillard in order to build a team ready for contention.

The Blazers currently hold the fifth-best odds for the No. 1 overall pick, but if they don’t land atop theNBA Draftboard, there’s a chance they could trade the pick, according to The Athletic’sJason Quick.

“About the only clarity in the Blazers’ path forward is this: The Blazers will likely trade their lottery pick unless they land the No. 1 pick (they have a 10.5 percent chance), which would give them the right to draft who many are calling a generational star in French big man Victor Wembanyama. Lillard all but etched in stone the trade-the-pick path Sunday when he said he did not want the Blazers to draft another young player. He said he wants proven veterans who can help now, not players who will need two to three years to develop.

“‘I’m just not interested in that. That’s not a secret,’ the 32-year-old Lillard said of adding another young player. ‘I want a chance to go for it. And if the route is to (draft youth), then that’s not my route.’”

Lillard is in the second half of his career and wants to win in Portland. Last year, there was a conundrum on whether to trade the No. 7 pick or keep it. Portland opted to keep it and draft Shaedon Sharpe, a player with a lot of raw potential but was not ready to be a primary starter for the Blazers this season.

Now, the Blazers are faced with the same dilemma. But this time, there may be a different result.