Portland Trail Blazers: Rumors about KAT heading to Rip City heating up
Rumors about the Portland Trail Blazers pursuing Karl-Anthony Towns are heating up. Is there any fire to this smoke?
Rob Ryan
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Finding an upside
Trying to spin the acquisition of Towns into a positive is more of a “Devil’s advocate” type position. If Portland were able to acquire Towns for the package listed above, the team would immediately have to change its structure and identity.
The Portland Trail Blazers would try to utilize Damian Lillard and Towns and turn them into a lethal, over-the-top, offensive powerhouse combination. The offensive potential of that pairing would be huge.
Forget Chauncey Billups defensive-minded coaching philosophy. That goes completely out the window.
They would have to move on from Billups and hire a Mike D’Antoni offensive-first type coach to maximize that scoring potential. The 2023 Lottery pick would likely have to be packaged out to get Portland a legit starting small forward, and the team would try and outscore opponents.
In this hypothetical, the Blazers would have to have a small forward who can defend and hit the 3-point shot. Maybe a Dorian Finney-Smith type player or an OG Anunoby if they are willing to include the lottery pick and a future firstst rounder while sending Nurkic to a third team.
Rip City would be rocking with a starting lineup of Lillard/Sharpe/Anunoby/Grant/Towns. They would likely be one of the best offensive teams in Blazers history.