NBA Trade Rumors: Predicting how and when the Damian Lillard trade saga will end.
Two weeks have passed, roughly, since Damian Lillard demanded a trade away from the Portland Trail Blazers. He also requested that he be traded to the Miami Heat and only them. Since then, though, there has not been much movement on a potential Lillard trade.
Eventually, you’d have to think that something is going to come to fruition. With the Heat being the only team aggressively pursuing Lillard, the belief is that it will eventually happen. When or how it happens is almost impossible to predict.
Is there another move from Damian Lillard coming?
That said, I think the biggest question in the Lillard saga that remains unanswered, at least for now, is whether there’s another posturing move coming from Dame. Will he hold steady on his desire to be traded to the Heat or even in his trade request that he’s made to the Blazers? Just last season, we saw Kevin Durant move off his trade demand before the start of the season. Could we see something similar from Dame?
I don’t think any of that is completely off the table just yet. And the more this situation lingers without a resolution, the more likely it is that there could be another shoe to drop. With what we know now, though, let’s put our thinking cap on and try to predict how and when this possible trade saga with Lillard will eventually end.
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.
What will the trade package for Damian Lillard look like?
This is the question that many are trying but can’t answer at the moment. Here’s the thing, we can actually make a pretty educated guess on what Lillard will likely be traded for. Blazers general manager Joe Cornin has already been on record saying what they’re looking for and has admitted that the return for Lillard won’t be what many expect it to be – because of the situation that Lillard has put the team in with the Heat being his only preferred destination.
With that, here is a fair guess of what the final Lillard trade package will look like. Again, it could be tweaked here and there, but with all the information we have, this could be a good prediction of what we can expect when a Lillard trade comes through:
With the Nets trading a 2025 first-round pick, the Heat would be able to now trade four future first-round picks to Brooklyn. At the moment, without the presence of a 2025 first-round pick, they only have two trade-eligible picks of their own. The Nets sending them the first in 2025 could be the key to getting this deal done.
In the end, Jusuf Nurkic ends up being part of the package sent to the Heat and Miami also sends its two talented young players (Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Nikola Jovic) to the Blazers as well.
What will be the lasting effects of the Damian Lillard trade saga?
Even if Lillard gets his desire and finds his way to the Miami Heat, there’s no question that there are going to be some huge future implications to this offseason. I’m not sure if this is the “tipping point” in the NBA Player Movement era, but this specific transaction will not be a great point in league history. The fact that Lillard has multiple years still on his contract and is able to handpick where he wants to be traded is not ideal for owners moving forward.
In a vacuum, there is much to figure out heading forward for the NBA. Sure, it’s a player’s league. But this is not great for the product long-term. Then again, this is often something that is discussed and reflected on almost after every superstar is traded. At the very least, it’s an interesting precedent for the next time a star decides he wants a trade.
Lillard gets to the Heat. The Blazers get their four future first-round draft picks to build around, and the Brooklyn Nets are awarded for their help with Tyler Herro. Nearly every team gets better (with the exception of the Blazers in the short term). The question is, though, at what cost?