NBA Trade Rumors: Damian Lillard is reportedly ‘not budging’ off his Miami Heat trade demand. The big question is, could that change?
Over the last few weeks, there hasn’t been little-to-no movement on the Damian Lillard situation. He’s demanded a trade to one team, the Miami Heat, but up to now, the Portland Trail Blazers haven’t been all that willing to work with this demand.
The Blazers want to be patient in this process and, clearly, haven’t gotten a trade offer from the Heat that they can accept. At this point, the two sides have been at a standstill heading into the dog days of the NBA offseason.
The latest on the Lillard situation is that he’s not budging on his trade demand to only the Heat. He still wants to be traded to Miami and his camp is trying to figure out the best way to make that happen, as they wait on the Heat and Blazers to potentially meet in the middle.
The question is, how long is Lillard willing to hold this position for? Would he be open to amending his trade demand?
Could Damian Lillard move off Miami Heat demand?
This is something that perhaps the Blazers and Cronin on hoping for – that there comes a point before the start of training camp when either Lillard expands his preferred list of teams or another team is willing to take the gamble and make a better offer than the Heat. At least for now, that hasn’t come to fruition. But there’s likely at least some hope in the Blazers’ organization that it does.
Ultimately, this could all come down to whether the Blazers are willing to head into the start of the season with Lillard still on the roster. That would be the ultimate game-changer in this story. If Portland is willing to do so, it puts the Heat and Lillard in pretty awkward situations.
At that point, Lillard would have to decide if he’s willing to sit out training camp and become an even bigger distraction and/or if the Heat is willing to start the season with this hovering over the locker room.
You’d have to imagine, that for all parties involved, something changes between now and the start of the season. However, that’s no guarantee. From all indications, it seems that all sides are sticking to their ground. For now.