NBA Trade Rumors: Heat, Blazers enter deadline month for Damian Lillard

NBA Trade Rumors: The Miami Heat and Portland Trail Blazers enter somewhat of a deadline month for Damian Lillard. 

Speculation about whether the Portland Trail Blazers will actually trade Damian Lillard to the Miami Heat has run its course. As we enter September, officially less than a month before the start of NBA Training Camps, it’s officially time to start the clock on a potential Lillard trade.

If something is going to get done before the NBA Trade Deadline, you’d imagine that it almost has to happen within the next few weeks. It makes the most sense for both teams, despite prior hesitation, to come to the table now. Even more so if there generally is no huge market for Lillard at the moment.

Both the Heat and Blazers would be incentivized to complete the Damian Lillard deal this month

To be perfectly honest, the month of September is not a deadline for the Blazers or Heat when it comes to Lillard. In fact, there’s little evidence that Lillard would even make it difficult to reflect such a deadline. Nevertheless, it would be insane to argue against the fact that it would incentivize both the Heat and Blazers if a Lillard trade was completed in September, before the start of NBA Training Camps during the first few days of October.

Lillard isn’t going to make a huge mess if he has to report to training camp, but it would not be a comfortable situation. In fact, to be quite honest, it would probably be somewhat of a circus for the Blazers. Instead of the media and national focal point on the team’s talented young core, the overwhelming attention would fall on Lillard.

From the questions to the stories to the huge elephant in the locker room – it would not be a great start to the season for Portland. That doesn’t mean general manager Joe Cronin would be above taking Lillard into camp, it just wouldn’t be a great look for the franchise and it would be an increasingly difficult road to maneuver for head coach Chauncey Billups and this team’s young core.

The same could be said for the Heat who will have to begin their training camp with some of the same questions, along with some of their key players being at the heart of constant trade rumors.

Plus, if Miami is going to be adding a star player such as Lillard, it’d be in the best interest of the team to try and have him in before the official start of the regular season to gain some comfort playing with his new team. That can’t happen if a trade doesn’t get completed before the start of training camp and pre-season.

If both teams are incentivized by a deal getting done this month, you’d have to imagine that there’d be at least some effort toward it. The question is, do both teams generally realize that at this point?