Boston Celtics: 3 Eastern Conference Damian Lillard landing spots that affect Cs

I’m a big believer in the fact that the Boston Celtics would be much better off keeping their assets and sticking with Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown rather than mortgaging their future for Damian Lillard.

With that being said, there are plenty of other teams in the Eastern Conference that could benefit greatly from adding an MVP-candidate caliber player in the 6x All-Star.

So who are the teams that the Boston Celtics have to watch out for in terms of Damian Lillard?

Boston Celtics Damian Lillard threat #1: Philadelphia 76ers

The reigning #1 seed has an interesting offseason ahead of them. After losing in the second round to the lower-seeded Atlanta Hawks, the issue of not having a true point guard is greater than ever. Pair that with the fact that Ben Simmons is slowly being alienated by his co-star and head coach and the idea presents itself for a possible Simmons for Lillard swap.

This move, should it happen, would be very bad for the Celtics.

Boston has handled Philadelphia easily with an 8-1 head-to-head matchups in the playoffs over the past four seasons. They always seem to have a good defensive plan to slow down Embiid while also being able to make Ben Simmons practically non-existent as we just saw the Hawks execute a similar idea in this year’s playoffs.

But, if you were to replace Simmons with Lillard, the Sixers instantly become an entirely new beast to guard.

Even if they’re unable to re-sign Danny Green, a starting lineup of Lillard-Curry-Thybulle-Harris-Embiid would have much-improved spacing, with capable shooters at every spot. Also, there’s enough defense around Lillard that his lack of it wouldn’t be a huge issue.

Not to mention, with how thin the guard spot is for the Celtics right now, Lillard would be able to carve up our backcourt with ease.

The ultimate takeaway is that a duo of Embiid and Lillard would present a much bigger issue for the Cs.