NBA Trade Rumors: Blazers preparing to trade Damian Lillard to highest bidder?

NBA Rumors: Are the Portland Trail Blazers preparing to trade Damian Lillard to the highest bidder? 

The Portland Trail Blazers and, specifically, general manager Joe Cronin have a big decision to make over the next few days and, possibly, weeks. They must decide on how to move forward with Damian Lillard’s trade request.

Do they trade him to his preferred landing spot – the Miami Heat – or do they send him to simply whichever offers them the best trade offer? Because of the Heat’s lack of premier trade assets, it’ll be difficult for Miami and Portland to find common ground on a 1-for-1 deal. That could open the door for another team to swoop in a steal Lillard.

And the recent reporting, at least from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski suggests that the Blazers could be preparing to send Lillard to whichever team offers the best trade value. And that would likely make Lillard not very happy.

Where will the Portland Trail Blazers trade Damian Lillard?

Let’s put it this way, if the Blazers are ready to trade Lillard to the highest bidder, that’s not going to be the Heat. Unless Lillard and his camp are working overtime to send the message that he won’t be happy on any other team than the Heat.

However, that seems unlikely to be happening at the moment.

If there is a non-Miami market right now for Dame, it wouldn’t be all that surprising if the Blazers ended up moving him wherever they got the best offer from. Portland is already coming off looking bad. They basically flat-out lied to Lillard in making it seem like they were trying to build a contender around him when they weren’t and then have turned this entire narrative upside down to look like the victims.

At this point, there’s really not much else the Blazers can do to come away looking worse than they are right now. So maybe they should just say, “screw it, let’s just send Dame to the team that is offering us the best package for ourselves.” At the end of the day, that’s the only thing that matters to them.

This idea of loyalty is a false narrative. It only exists when it’s convenient. And that’s not different in this situation with Lillard and the Blazers. Dame did everything he could for Portland, being loyal year after year. And finally, when it’s clear that they’re basically pushing him out, they’re acting like the victim.

This entire situation is quite unfortunate. This is probably something that should’ve been taken care of behind closed doors without much media attention. Instead, it’s become a circus and it may get even uglier before there’s any resolution.

The Blazers know what’s going to come if Lillard is not sent to where he wants to go but with every day that passes it seems that they’re more and more ready to make that type of move.