Celtics, Lakers or Warriors: Which Is the Best Fantasy Hoops Spot For Damian Lillard?

“[NBA] sources say [Damian] Lillard received calls from several contending teams quickly after the news of his Bucks’ ending broke. League sources say the Golden State Warriors, Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers are known to be among the many teams that would have interest in doing a deal sooner rather than later.”

So said The Athletic mere hours after the Milwaukee Bucks sent the future Hall of Famer packing in order to make room under the salary cap for former Indiana Pacers center Myles Turner.

If The Athletic’s insiders are on point—and they usually are—the question then becomes, which of the three franchises mentioned above would be the ideal place for Lillard’s fantasy hoops nirvana?

Answer: None of the above.

It’s distinctly possible that by the time you finish reading this article, the Celtics will have pulled off six more trades, making it all but impossible to gauge whether a Beantown home will help or hurt Lillard’s fantasy value.

But just for the heckuvit, let’s stipulate the Boston depth chart we see as of this writing is the Boston depth chart we’ll see after this article goes live—a depth chart that has Derrick White and Payton Pritchard listed as the top point guards, with Anfernee Simons starting at the two-spot.

How does Lillard fit into that rotation? Does White head to the bench? Does Pritchard—the reigning Sixth Man of the Year—lose minutes?

However it shakes out, Lillard won’t see as much burn as he did either in Portland or Milwaukee, and it will thus make it a scootch difficult to hit his nightly career 41.7-fantasy-point-average.

If, however, the Celtics redirect Simons—and that could be a thing—different story, as a Lillard/White backcourt would closely resemble Portland’s Lillard/C.J. McCollum duo, a duo that made a ton of statistical noise during their six seasons together.

In this era of positionless basketball, a Damian Lillard/Steph Curry backcourt could be offensively scary.

But in this era of 6’6”,  230-pound point guards (Luka, anyone?), a Damian Lillard/Steph Curry backcourt would be defensively scary. And not in a good way.

However, fantasy players are only mildly interested in defense, so as long as Lillard gets his minutes—and with Brandin Podziemski and Moses Moody as the only truly useful backup guards, that will 100% happen—let the games begin.

Lillard would see less opportunities in Golden State. In L.A., it would be even less than that.

Luka Doncic currently has the highest usage rate in NBA history (35.5%), with LeBron James just five spots behind (31.4%). Lillard clocks in at 25th (29.0%), but with Doncic and James on the court, Dame will be lucky if he hits 27%.

That’s just silly.

The fact is the Lakers need bigs—their current starting center is Maxi Kleiber (ugh)—and would be way better off focusing on landing a center.