Damian Lillard recently looked back on the Portland Trail Blazers trading his former backcourt mate CJ McCollum to the New Orleans Pelicans in 2022.
(via It Is What It Is):
Cam’ron: “Do you think that they got rid of CJ McCollum because [Anfernee] Simons started playing good?”
Lillard: “Nah. I don’t think so. Me and CJ, we was in the backcourt for like 8 years together, and we both was making a lot of money, but we was like size, our games was real similar. I felt like they knew that it was time for us to figure out a different situation. And me and CJ had talked about that for years. We knew that it was gonna happen. If it was ever anybody to be a partner with that we was transparent and we had open conversations about everything, it was me and him. We knew this was coming, we knew it was a possibility. And when it came, it wasn’t a shocker. Me and him was on the phone the night before he got traded like, ‘I think it’s finna happen tomorrow.’ We was talking about it like that. We knew that it had to happen because it didn’t work out for so many years. So it was like, ‘Alright. We gotta pivot, and try what’s next.’ And that’s all that happened.”
