On July 1st, Damian Lillard requested a trade out of Portland, he wanted to be traded by the team who he had played for during the first 11 seasons of his career. He told the Trail Blazers he wants to play for the Miami Heat and only the Miami Heat. It feels as if it is obvious that Miami should acquire Lillard and trade everything they can, minus Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler, to make sure they get him. Yet, Lillard remains a Blazer. Will Miami get a deal done or will another team, the Toronto Raptors, step up to the plate and land Lillard.
I wrote about Miami’s best offer a few times now but in case anyone has forgotten it, here it is. Tyler Herro, Caleb Martin, Jamie Jaquez Jr., Nikola Jovic, Kyle Lowry (and his expiring contract), unprotected first round picks in 2024, 2028, and 2030, and pick swaps in 2025, 2027, and 2029 for Lillard and Jusuf Nurkic (and his large contract) (in order to do this, Miami would need to make their 2025 lottery protected pick they owe to the Thunder, unprotected in 2026 but that should not be difficult). Now, there would be a third team to take Herro because Portland does not need him (the Jazz reportedly want him) but it should not be hard to find a taker on that. Miami has expressed no interest in offering this, and reportedly is not close to making this level of an offer. I understand you like Martin, Jaquez, and Jovic, or don’t want to be out of all of your picks but this is Damian Lillard we are talking about and they need to trade for him. Miami has gotten worse this summer with the losses of Max Strus and Gabe Vincent. Strus is a good 3 and D player who was very important to their team as they made their run to the NBA Finals last season and their run to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2022 and Vincent was their best guard last season. This is a worse team than last year’s group and while guys like Duncan Robinson and Josh Richardson can patch the void Strus left, they do not have anyone to replace Vincent on the roster at this point. Lillard does more than that and puts Miami right back at the top of the Eastern Conference for next season. Miami’s window is now and not landing Damian Lillard because of Caleb Martin, Nikola Jovic, and Jamie Jaquez Jr. is insane to me and I cannot understand it for the life of me.
With Miami seemingly unwilling to make any deal with Portland right now, the Blazers have turned to other teams to make their offers and one team that seems to be very interested in Lillard is the Toronto Raptors. Do I think the Raptors should mortgage a lot of their future for Lillard? No I do not, but their interest is not all that surprising. Fred VanVleet, Toronto’s only reliable guard from last season, is a Houston Rocket and the Raptors replaced him with Dennis Schroder, leaving them without any sort of playmaker you trust at all with a team that wants to win now. Scottie Barnes is off the table, and he should be but that does not mean Toronto cannot make a good offer. They are well equipped with very good players Portland could flip, young players Portland wants, and most of their draft capital, they owe their 2024 pick to the Spurs. Toronto’s very best offer would probably look like this: OG Anunoby, Gary Trent Jr., Grady Dick, Precious Achiuwa, unprotected first round picks in 2026, 2028, and 2030, and pick swaps in 2027 and 2029. Portland would do that deal in a heartbeat but Tornoto will not, and should not, offer that much. A more realistic offer would be Anunoby, Dick, Chris Boucher, Thaddeus Young, unprotected picks in 2026, 2028, and 2030, and one pick swap and I believe that is a better offer than what Miami can offer. A lot of it comes down to how you feel about Tyler Herro vs OG Anunoby and I think Anunoby is better and more impactful toward winning (and he would also fetch Portland more than Herro would if they wanted to flip him). Grady Dick projects to be an elite shooter as well, and he would mesh well with Portland’s new core, the picks Toronto is offering are better than Miami’s because all of the picks are pushed into the future and not when the team acquiring Lillard projects to be good and what is considered by many to be a bad draft. With that being said, I do not believe the Raptors should trade for Damian Lillard and believe it would be a huge mistake as this team is not good and therefore not worth mortgaging your future for. In fact, I think the Raptors should go the other direction and trade Pascal Siakam.
The last thing I want to touch on is about all these reports about how Lillard wouldn’t show up to camp and would throw a hissy fit if he is traded anywhere other than Miami. What are we talking about? I am all for players wanting to be traded but Lillard just signed a contract extension last summer worth over $120 million dollars, all of which he’ll be receiving in a 2-year span. He is locked in through the 2025-26 season when he has a player option for $63 million for the 2026-27 season. Over the next 4 seasons, Lillard is owed $216.1 million, and yet we are listening to him threaten to not show up to training camp if he is traded anywhere other than Miami? For starters, I do not buy it, and if it is true I don’t want to hear it. Lillard did not need to sign that big extension if he wanted to get to Miami so badly but he did, and while I’ll never crap on a player for taking the money (because they always should), what bothers me is that after you sign the big extension is that you then decide that want to be traded and will only play for one team. I feel like I am making an old-man ‘get off my lawn’ take here but Lillard could have been a free agent after this season if he did not sign that extension. I think Lillard gets his wish and heads to Miami but if he does not, I think it would be so lame for him to throw a hissy fit and not show up to training camp.
We have waited on the Damian Lillard trade for 3 months now and with training camp fast approaching, a deal could happen soon. I am over seeing Dame rumors on my timeline so if a deal could happen soon, that would be greatly appreciated.
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