NBA Trade Rumors: Miami Heat, Portland Trail Blazers are gaining traction on a potential Damian Lillard deal?
When NBA Training Camps open, on October 3, it will effectively be three months since Damian Lillard demanded a trade from the Portland Trail Blazers. However, there’s perhaps some growing hope that a deal could be getting done in the next couple of weeks.
The big question is whether or not Lillard’s preferred destination, the Miami Heat, and the Blazers will be able to find a good middle ground on a potential deal. At least for now, there’s no guarantee that will happen.
However, according to a recent report from Greg Sylvander of Five Reasons Sports, there is some hope that the Heat and Blazers have made some progress on talks in the last few days. Led by seasoned Miami Heat reporter Ethan Skolnick, Five Reasons Sports has been all over the Lillard trade saga since the beginning.
And considering that the most recent update from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski suggested that the Blazers have been picking up trade talks for Lillard in the last week or so, you’d have to imagine that some of those talks probably included the Heat.
While it’s entirely impossible to predict if the Heat and Blazers have made any strides in a trade for Lillard, you’d have to think that if there’s any hope of a deal getting done before the start of free agency, it almost has to happen in the next week or so.
Do the Portland Trail Blazers want to make this really messy?
For both sides, it makes sense for a deal to get done before the start of training camp. However, at this point, the Blazers may be willing to let this situation get even messier. And if that is indeed the case, keeping Lillard on the roster into the start of training camp would be exactly that.
Here’s the concerning part for Miami; the hardest part of not trading Lillard before the start of the season occurs on media day. If the Blazers can go unscathed through media day, they’re in the clear. All they need is for Lillard not to make things awkward. At this point, it doesn’t seem likely that he would.
Still, it makes the most sense for the Blazers to not even bring that possible distraction into camp or the start of the season.
However, who knows what this front office is thinking at the moment?