Adrian Wojnarowski on where things stand between the Trail Blazers and Heat on a potential Damian Lillard trade: It could take weeks, it could take months… The absence of a real deadline lurking on a Damian Lillard trade – there’s no trade deadline coming, there’s no NBA Draft, there’s no July 1 free agency about to start – all those landmarks on the NBA calendar give teams motivation and parameters to get big deals done. The next real deadline for any of these teams is the start of training camp in late September. So I think for the Portland Trail Blazers, they don’t want to rush into what they consider to be a bad deal. The Miami Heat, the team that is most motivated to trade for Damian Lillard, where he wants to end up, they don’t want to be in a situation where they’re bidding against themselves right now. They look out into the marketplace, they see teams that are – they know the market does not love the idea of paying Damian Lillard a $60 million average at 35 and 36 years old over the last two years of that deal. If this was a contract with two years left, it would be different, perhaps. So there’s no rush for either side to be real aggressive in their conversations with each other. For Portland, they’re motivated to wait this out and continue to see ‘How do we get the most back for Damian Lillard?’ They don’t see it as moving quickly for a deal unless Miami came with all of its assets. They know what they’re able to trade for Lillard, but they’re not motivated to do that right now. They’d be bidding against themselves. -via Twitter @ClutchPointsApp / July 14, 2023
