'Hey!' Knicks' Josh Hart Recruiting Damian Lillard After Trade Request

News of Damian Lillard's trade request is hardly a few hours old, but former Portland Trail Blazers teammate Josh Hart is already trying to recruit him to the New York Knicks.

Twitter's issues with "rate limits" couldn't stop Josh Hart from traversing the recruitment trail.

Mere hours after Damian Lillard reportedly asked to move on from the Portland Trail Blazers, Hart, his former Pacific Northwest teammate and current New York Knick, was trying to lure him to Manhattan. Taking to Twitter, Hart left a simple, short message whose intent was abundantly clear.

"Hey," Hart delcared, tagging Lillard's account and accompanying it with an emoji waving to him.

Leave it to the star-crossed luck of the Knicks for Lillard to hit the market when they've shored up their backcourt game in the form of Jalen Brunson, whose breakout paved the way for the team's 47-win season and first playoff series victory in a decade. However, with all the hype and hullaballoo around bringing in another Villanova alum in the form of Donte DiVincenzo, another reunion is now on the table.

Upon Hart's transfer to New York, which sent a Cam Reddish and what became the 23rd overall pick of last month's draft to the Pacific Northwest, Lillard lamented losing not only a strong veteran talent but a good friend as well.

“I think for everybody who’s been here, the entire time that I’ve been here, one of the hardest parts is when you form a friendship or form a bond with somebody," Lillard said upon Hart's departure, per Aaron Fentress of The Oregonian. "Everybody’s looking at, what are they doing on the court? What can they do to get better? Everybody else is looking at it from a business standpoint and how to improve and all these things."

"I know that he liked being in Portland. He wanted to be in Portland. When you get people to come here and know that they want to be here, but the business takes over, it’s just unfortunate. So, like I said, it’s part of the business. It’s the thing that I struggle with the most about it, but it’s part of it. That’s what we sign up for.”

Even with Lillard's lasting loyalty to the Trail Blazers, many have tried linking him to the Knicks. ESPN commentator and Knicks fan/critic Stephen A. Smith has been among them, claiming to have "begged" Lillard to come east.

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Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags

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