Damian Lillard confirms trade request to Heat, but ‘prefers not to speak on the Trail Blazers’

With on the subject of a month final till NBA coaching camps start, the prevailing unsettled topic is the long run of Portland Trail Blazers All-Star Damian Lillard, who issued a trade request in July, in accordance to Blazers common supervisor Joe Cronin. As it turned into transparent {that a} trade to Lillard’s most well-liked vacation spot, the Miami Heat, wasn’t going to occur any time quickly, Lillard’s agent, Aaron Goodwin, made public comments suggesting that he had warned groups that his consumer simplest sought after to play in Miami.

That led to the NBA issuing a memo to all 30 groups threatening self-discipline if both Lillard or Goodwin contacted groups privately or publicly to counsel that Lillard would not “fully perform the services called for under his player contract in the event of a trade.” The trade chatter died down a bit of after that, but on Thursday we in spite of everything heard from Lillard himself about the standing of his call for.

Well, type of.

For the first time, Lillard publicly showed that he did, in truth, request a trade to Miami, in a conversation with Andscape’s Marc J. Spears. Outside of that, then again, Lillard declined to be offering information about his long run or his present scenario.

“I’m not going to speak on the Blazers,” Lillard stated. “It’s lot of love and respect, but I won’t speak on the Blazers. … I can say that there was [a trade request to the Heat], and I would just prefer not to speak on the Trail Blazers.”

Lillard has spent his whole 11-year profession with the Blazers, incomes seven All-Star appearances, seven All-NBA alternatives and a place on the NBA seventy fifth Anniversary Team. He’s additionally coming off arguably his easiest season, during which he averaged a career-high 32.2 issues at the side of 7.3 assists, whilst taking pictures 37% on over 11 3-pointers in line with recreation.

Adding some extent guard of Lillard’s caliber to a Miami Heat group coming off its 2nd NBA Finals look in 4 years would ship shockwaves via each the Eastern Conference and the NBA at massive. However, Cronin has remained steadfast in his need to discover a deal that delivers top class property for Portland, even supposing it comes from every other group.

“If you look at the history of me speaking about loyalty, I’ve always said that I’m loyal to who I am and I’m going to do what I feel like is the right thing to do,” Lillard told Andscape. “For me, I know what I want for myself and I’m going to be loyal to that. When I feel like this is the vision I have for myself, this is what I see being fit for me at this moment, I’m going to ride that until the wheels fall off but anything that I’m a part of, it all has to be connected.”