NBA Trade Rumors: The Portland Trail Blazers may finally be realizing that the non-Heat market for Damian Lillard may be underwhelming.
Over the past few days, it’s become quite clear that the Portland Trail Blazers are taking time to explore the Damian Lillard trade market beyond just the Miami Heat. Even though the Heat is Lillard’s preferred landing spot, there’s no guarantee that the Blazers are going to do him right by sending him there.
Even if the Blazers do plan on eventually trading him to Miami, it only makes sense for the franchise to do their due diligence across the league. However, according to a recent report, the Blazers may not be running into the vast market as they had expected – or hoped for.
According to Aaron Fentress of The Oregonian, the Blazers haven’t been wowed by the non-Heat offers or trade discussions thus far. A lot can change in a matter of a few days, but this should not be all that surprising.
Lillard and his camp have made it clear that he wants to be in Miami and that has clearly made teams shy away from going all-in on a pursuit. Not to mention that at 33 years old, Lillard is still due roughly $216 million over the next four seasons.
Are the Portland Trail Blazers operating under a training camp deadline to find a Damian Lillard trade?
It’s already been reported that the Blazers, in a perfect world, would like to find a resolution to the Lillard saga before the start of NBA Training Camp. Quite frankly, the fact that this has headlined their offseason, you can’t blame them. At some point, Lillard fatigue was going to overwhelm the front office. While that doesn’t mean the Blazers are going to accept any offer that comes across their table just for the sake of doing so, it could indicate Portland pushing hard to find a trade that makes sense over the next couple of weeks.
Portland doesn’t have much time to waste as their training camp is set to open on October 3. If a deal is going to happen before then, the trade discussions involving Lillard have to pick up pretty quickly.
And if this report is accurate that the non-Heat trade market for Lillard is a bit underwhelming, perhaps it’s officially time for them to circle back to Miami and try to make lemonade out of lemons.
It’s far from a certainty that it will happen that way, but it’s absolutely a scenario that could end up playing out over the next 7-10 days.