As the Damian Lillard-Portland Trail Blazers trade saga wears on, with most expecting the seven-time All-Star to eventually land with the Miami Heat, ESPN insider Adrian Wojnaroski reports that conversations surrounding a Lillard trade could heat up closer to the start of NBA Training Camp.

“The next real deadline is the start of training camp in late September,” Wojnarowski notes. “That's certainly going to be a moment of truth for the Portland organization. Do they want to bring Lillard back into camp with all of this swirling around?”

“Or do they, at that point, take the best offer they can get out there? Do they take it into the season? But right now, there's just not been a lot of among teams about a Lillard trade.”

As it has been noted before, there are multiple reasons that Lillard trade conversations have slowed down, aside from the fatalistic feeling teams have about his eventual landing spot. To start, the summer schedule:

“You get into the dog days of summer — as July turns to August — lots of GMs, team presidents, owners who are involved in these conversations, they're going vacation, teams aren't engaged, there are no deadlines looming,” Wojnarowski reiterates. “And that certainly has slowed up this process.”

In addition, despite the Blazers understandable desire to squeeze the most out of a Lillard trade, the Heat don't believe that Portland is really getting many — if any — competitive offers anyways.

“Miami's not gonna bid against itself and keep upping its offer when it doesn't think Portland necessarily has anything comparable. That's why this is dragging out and why it may continue to drag out.”

Still, whatever decision the Blazers make about how they should proceed this offseason, fans likely won't know for sure a little while longer.