NBA Trade Rumors: Miami Heat wants Portland Trail Blazers to tell them exactly what they want for Damian Lillard; so far, they haven’t been willing to negotiate.
Another day, another round of reporting on how the Miami Heat and Portland Trail Blazers are not close to finding a resolution for Damian Lillard. It’s almost been three weeks into this saga and there appears to be no end in sight.
The latest rumblings, from Chris Hayes, are that the Heat simply have no handle on what the Blazers want exactly for Lillard. Portland has reportedly told the Heat to give them their best offer and Miami would rather negotiate a deal. Instead, there’s been no willingness from the Blazers to do so.
The difference between where the Heat and Blazers are regarding Lillard
Here’s the thing, the Heat and Blazers are in two different places when it comes to Lillard. Based on everything that’s been reported recently, that’s the way it looks. The Heat clearly wants to sit down and negotiate with the Blazers, as you would expect. They’re not going to bid against themselves. They want to sit down with Portland and hammer this down. At least that’s the way t seems.
The Blazers, on the other hand, if I’m reading this situation correctly, basically want everything from the Heat and they don’t really view this as a negotiation. They want Miami to offer everything and figure out the third and fourth teams on their own. Basically, it seems that the Blazers want the Heat to come in one day and say, “look, we have this four-team deal in which you get this, that, and the other” – which, you’d imagine, would include four future first-round picks and 1-2 talented young players.
Miami isn’t going to do that. For one, they seem no point in bidding against themselves, and two, without knowing what exactly the Blazers want from them, it’s difficult to go out and craft a deal alone.
So the Heat clearly wants to sit down with the Blazers and up until this point, Portland has no interest in doing that. That’s why there’s a stalemate at the moment.
With both teams headed on vacation, this is a situation that will likely linger into August. The big question is whether something gets done before the start of training camp. As of now, there’s no guarantee of that.