NBA Trade Rumors: Which non-Heat teams would be interested in Damian Lillard?

NBA Trade Rumors: Could there theoretically be a non-Heat market for Damian Lillard? We explore if that’s even a possibility. 

Just before the weekend, nearly four weeks after Damian Lillard officially demanded a trade away from the Portland Trail Blazers and requested that he be traded to the Miami Heat only, the NBA released a memo to all 30 teams basically rebuking everything Lillard and his camp have done the past few weeks.

In essence, the NBA gave a warning to Lillard and his agent. In short, they told them to cut out the whole “Heat or bust” trade demand. The big question is, what was the ultimate goal of this memo?

Was it to help the Blazers in their quest to start a bidding war for Dame? Was it to simply save face and to stop future stars from demanding a trade to one team? It’s tough to say at the moment, but if the goal is to create a bidding war for Dame, I have a few questions.

For one, how do we know there would be a theoretical bidding war even if Dame didn’t say “Heat or nothing” with his trade request? There’s no guarantee that there would be.

Theoretically, is there a non-Heat market for Damian Lillard?

Let’s dive into this issue. Realistically, what is the non-Heat market for Dame? Is there one? Let’s try to find one. A few things we must understand before trying to identify teams that would be interested in Lillard.

For one, they’d have to be a team ready to contend for a title or a team that is a Lillard addition away from contending for a title. Second, they’d also have to be a team willing to either gut their roster, trade a key core player, or mortgage their future via draft picks for Dame.

Now that we have that understanding, let’s scour the market for teams that check both of those boxes as suitors for Lillard.