NBA Trade Rumors: Predicting when – and how – the Damian Lillard saga ends

An educated prediction of when Damian Lillard will be traded

It’s tough to predict when exactly this Damian Lillard trade will go through. However, assuming that nothing significant changes in this saga, which is no guarantee, there’s a pretty clear window to when we could see a trade take place.

I think there are two windows to keep an eye on. The first one runs through the end of the NBA Summer League and the next few days after that. It was reported that Cronin was using NBA Summer League to see if there was any non-Heat market for Lillard. Once he finds out what that is, he can then go back to the drawing board and figure out what the next step is. NBA Summer League ends on July 17. I think this first window includes the last few days of the NBA Summer League and a few days after that.

Maybe he decides he wants to hammer out a deal with the Heat after he realizes there simply is not much of a market around the league. I would not put that out of the question. The first trade window to watch for is July 14-20ish.

Then, depending on what the Blazers would want in addition to draft capital, there’s a chance the second window begins in early August. That’s when a player such as Jaime Jaquez Jr. is eligible to be traded.

If Portland wants both Jaquez and Nikola Jovic, that’s when it could possibly happen. The second window is August 1-10. If it gets beyond that, we could be looking at a situation that possibly runs into the season. And that wouldn’t be ideal for either party involved.