Damian Lillard Discusses His Phone Call With Carmelo Anthony

On Monday morning, Chris Mannix of Yahoo Sports and NBC Sports Radio guest hosted The Dan Patrick Show to speak with Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard, taking his pulse on Carmelo Anthony trade talk, and pumping more life into the offseason story that has people asking “Could Anthony be a Blazer next year?”

Among other things, Mannix asked Lillard about his phone call with Anthony, and where that conversation went.

Mannix: Did you get any kind of sense that he would be willing to waive that no-trade clause?

Lillard: Um. I mean, I didn’t get the sense that he wouldn’t. I think what we have here is a good situation for him. That’s kind of where it went. I just let him know what I thought he could do for our team and what our team could do with his presence. That was it. We didn’t go over no details and talk about a no-trade clause or anything like that. He’s going to make his own decision to do that or not. I just wanted to make sure that we had some kind of conversation.

Lillard’s cadence was less than encouraging, but it could be supposed that there is technically a non-zero chance that Anthony would accept Portland as a trade destination. On paper, a core-four of Lillard, CJ McCollum, Anthony, and Jusuf Nurkic would take an immediate leap into the upper echelon of the Western Conference.