Bill Simmons had Ryen Russillo on his Monday podcast to discuss Damian Lillard’s trade request, and they batted around a few destinations. After considering the Philadelphia 76ers, Simmons pushed his Lillard for Karl-Anthony Towns idea again.
Minnesota was pretty intriguing for me, and I don’t even know if he’d go there. But if it was Towns, and I don’t even know what else they’d have to offer at this point. But even just Towns for Dame, probably not enough.
But I was just thinking if you had Gobert and Edwards, and you kept SloMo, and you kept McDaniels, and you had Dame like that is a team that I think could compete in a real way.
“Yeah,” Russillo agreed, “because whatever I think about Minnesota now, I’d expect them to compete next year.”
“Dame and Edwards is like holy s—,” Simmons replied, “this is gonna be a tough game for us tonight.”
Russillo said that the trade makes sense in principle, but it’s going to be tough to get each side to decide what else to include.
Yeah, and I think it solves the inevitable Towns problem that I think you’re gonna have. And I don’t think Minnesota … look, I know what they would say.
Minnesota would argue, ‘Hey, our guy is younger. And despite some of the flaws, this dude puts up crazy numbers, and he’s one of the best-shooting bigs. And he’s not $63 million four years from now, so you gotta give us something. You’ve gotta give us a sweetener.’
And Portland’s going, ‘Your guy isn’t even close to being the same guy as our guy, and we’d have to re-sign him anyway.’
We already know what all the different arguments would be. But I don’t think it would be like one side is overwhelming the other one with sweetener on top of one of those two players, right?
Simmons said it could potentially be a three-way trade with Houston.
Or maybe … I keep throwing in Houston because Houston seems to me [that] they have all these young assets that aren’t ready to play yet, and they also signed Fred VanVleet and Dillon Brooks. This team, are they trying to be good right now? And if they’re trying to be good right now, maybe they’d want Towns?
And maybe they’d give all the assets to Portland, and then Dame goes to Minnesota.
The Wolves should seriously consider trading Towns for Dame. Towns has been loyal to Minnesota and is a great offensive player. However, his defense isn’t great, and the Timberwolves have a lot of money tied up in bigs after extending Naz Reid.
Given that Rudy Gobert has almost no trade value, it might make sense to move Towns before his extension kicks in and get a running mate for Anthony Edwards. Regardless of if they should be or not, the Wolves are all-in, making this a reasonable time to trade for Lillard.
