When LaMarcus Aldridge left for the San Antonio Spurs, a piece of Portland was gone. His 9-year stint in Rip City brought upon the departures of the team's core: Nicolas Batum, Wesley Matthews, and Robin Lopez. Damian Lillard was left to rebuild his team from the bottom up.

In this week's episode of Knuckleheads with Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles, the Trail Blazers All-Star discussed what his experience was like playing alongside Aldridge for the first time.

"I just remember my first year being like, I'm excited to be playing with LaMarcus Aldridge," Lillard said. "I'm going to throw him the ball every time and if I'm open, I'm not going to miss."

He continued: "I was just like excited to be the point guard that got to play with him. I was like if me and him going to play together, I'm going to keep getting better so I can match him. And we gonna win it. That's what I thought."

But Lillard and Aldridge never saw an NBA championship in Portland come to fruition. He instead signed a four-year, $60 million contract to join the Spurs and play alongside Tim Duncan and Tony Parker.

Lillard believes if he and Aldridge would have stayed together in Portland, they could have built something special, and won an NBA championship.

"If me and him would have stayed teammates, and I could get to the level that I am now, we could have for sure got one," Lillard said. "And then maybe we don't lose Batum, lose Wes and we got CJ [McCollum], Will Barton, Allen Crabbe. We had the team to do it, we just needed to stay together. And in San Antonio, he's been to the Western Conference finals and I've been to the Western Conference Finals, but we both came up short."

In his second season in San Antonio, Aldridge had two eight-point efforts in the Western Conference Finals during the 2016-17 season. He was held to 4-for-11 shooting in 22 minutes in the series finale against the Warriors. San Antonio suffered a clean sweep in the Western Conference Finals to the eventual champion Golden State Warriors.

Fans will always wonder what could have been if Aldridge would have stayed in Portland, but Lillard clearly believes the Trail Blazers could have had it all.

Damian Lillard believes Trail Blazers could have won a championship if LaMarcus Aldridge never left originally appeared on NBC Sports Northwest