Maybe the market for disgruntled Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard wasn't as vibrant as initially thought. Although the Miami Heat are still reportedly as interested in Lillard as ever, it seems that the Blazers didn't have a ton of willing suiters when the trade request was first announced.
Recently, an anonymous NBA executive opined that there was a clear limit to how much teams were willing to give up for the aging star.
“There’s not that many teams that are going to give you a bunch of players and picks for a 33-year-old who can’t stay healthy and has a giant contract sitting there,” said the executive, per Forbes. “It was not anything Dame said or (agent) Aaron Goodwin said that shut down the market. That stuff didn’t help. But there weren’t teams lined up for him even before that.”
Article Continues BelowThis latest report may potentially indicate why there hasn't been a Damian Lillard trade yet. If this executive is correct about Lillard's market, then it's easy to understand why the Blazers would be in no rush to trade the point guard to what was really only a one-team market in the form of Miami.
It remains to be seen whether or not Lillard plans to sit out from team activities if he isn't traded. NBA training camps begin in September, and the season begins in mid-October.
While there isn't necessarily an urgent need for the Blazers to dump their best player in franchise history, it would still behoove them to get something done sooner rather than later and open the door for the Scoot Henderson era to commence.