Damian Lillard: Bam Adebayo's first recruit to the Miami Heat? | Five on the Floor

All right, let's go to Dame, okay? And Alex, I'll go to you on this first. All right, look, there's a ton of smoke, obviously. All right, from Dame, the Showtime interview. Then you and I had hiking on for 40 minutes and I basically killed the whole thing because Sean doesn't think there's any chance that he's going anywhere. But then Hanes comes out and we know that Hanes is the number one source on Dame. There's no one close, okay? I mean, Sean's a terrific reporter, but it's different being a guy's really good friend, okay? And Dame and Chris Hanes are really good friends. If you don't know Chris's history, he played college basketball. There's a lot of respect there. And Dame is basically the one that in a lot of ways helped launch Chris's career. He covered him in Portland before he went to cover the Cavs. I know Chris Hanes very well personally because I basically covered LeBron in the Cavs with him for one year and became good friends with Chris. Good reporter, he speaks for Dame, okay? And I don't think he'd have a problem with me saying that. And I'm happy to get Chris on the podcast and I'm gonna try to do that this week. So he comes out again today and he says, as this is going on, he says that, but it was not really from Dame. It was more so Miami's interest towards Dame, which was interesting. How did you read it? Yeah, that was the interesting part. I was just about to point that out too because it's been known for a while now, you could say years, but that Chris Hanes is very close to Damian Lillard. I mean, they've done like one-on-one interviews together and it's obvious that he somewhat speaks for him and that's not to take away from anything he does. He just, he made the relationships, that's great. But the tweet, like you mentioned, was kind of worded in a way where it's kind of getting into the head of the Heat front office where it says, just to quote it, Miami's focus is Portland superstar Damian Lillard. With the genuine belief this could be the off-season, the veteran guard seeks a change of scenery. League sources tell NBA on TNT. Wait, Alex, stop, Alex, stop, because I need some levity tonight. Bring back that comment, please, the last one. I'm sorry, it's gonna sound terrible on the podcast feed. I don't care. Alex fixed the light in his room, forgot what the background looked like. Go ahead, I'm sorry, continue. I know I'm taking you very seriously, but I need the levity tonight. I mean, I just like forgot my point completely. No, the thing with the Blazers thing is like, I feel like it was weird that it got, it was worded and put out that way where it was talking about it from the Heat's perspective. But it really does just feel like added pressure from Damian on, you know, for the Blazers to trade that number three pick that they own. And, you know, we're on the clock here. There's only a few days left for this. So it's just funny that the timing was like almost right after the deal news comes out, you get this. So at least, you know, Heat fans love the- But again, Alex, it was from the other side though. That's the thing I don't understand. That's what I'm saying. It's saying that the Heat are interested. It'd be one thing for Haynes to come out and say- I mean, he's spent a lot of time in Miami over the past couple of seasons. We've seen him a lot here, that's for sure. Maybe he's developed some relationships here too. I know that, but then why wouldn't Haynes just tell Dame what, that's what, again, that's the part that I didn't understand. The genuine belief thing is the part that got me. Cause it's just very like intentional wording, it's genuine belief. I wonder who told him that. I wonder if it's from the Heat's camp, you know, Dame's camp just trying, again, trying to put pressure on the Blazers that just kind of wanted to, I guess, do it in a different way where it wasn't as obvious. I don't know, man, because it's obvious that the Heat's focus at this point, after Bill is traded, is going to be onto Damian Lillard. It's like an obvious thing to say, but the fact that it's coming from Chris Haynes, everybody's like, okay, there's Dame doing it again. So yeah, like, I just think Dame is under contract for what is it, three or four more years. His leverage at this point is making moves like this because, I mean, if the Blazers, you know, do their version of running back, they're going to be a lottery team, I mean, a lottery team or a playing team at best, right? Like, so I think this is basically him going on the offensive here. Greg, did you want to say something? Cause then I want to get to Brady. It wasn't- I mean, how do you read that? How do you read that? Cause we know that the Heat are interested in him, but for Haynes to say the Heat are interested in him again, I don't understand why he just doesn't tap Dame on the shoulder and say they're interested in you. It would be different. To me, there's pressure involved, but I do think that there's ultimately like, we can't say that Chris Haynes is the ultimate authority when it comes to Dame Lillard. And then he put out a tweet like that. He doesn't mention any other team and he talks about what their genuine beliefs are. I think that there's something to watch there, but I also think like, if the Heat wanted to play damage control with their fan base who just didn't get Bradley Beal, they wouldn't go to Chris Haynes and say, hey, can y'all say that we have a genuine belief so that they think we're now going on to Dame? They also wouldn't do that because it would be complete suicide with their fan base because if they don't get Dame, then they look even worse. This is the part that I tweeted- Who it helps. Right, and this is the part I tweeted, okay? Like I don't, people think like, well, you're caping for the front office by saying they're going after guys. This doesn't make the front office look good. Like, trust me, the front office doesn't want us pushing this agenda out there. Like, everyone is saying, oh, we're getting this from the front office. Like, we're getting it from sources around the negotiations, agents, executives, and some who are around the team, yes, who I speak to. But I'm just saying like, it's not an agenda they're pushing that they're going after a guy. They don't want that out there because if they swing and miss, then this narrative continues that Pat can't get anybody without Dwayne, that they miss out on everyone that they go after. Like, they don't want that. That's why the wording out of it was very strange. Like, first, they wouldn't go to Hanes on it, but second, they wouldn't, there's no motivation for them to say this unless they're, and here's the thing, unless they're 100% sure they're getting Dame. And the only thing I want to add to this, and this is one part I have not mentioned before, and then Brady, I'm going to go to you on the fit, all that kind of stuff, and then we'll talk about why I don't think it's ultimately going to happen. But he'd have a lot of knowledge of the Portland organization because I reported a couple of years ago, Portland went after Spoh, okay? And remember, we talked about that a little bit off-air with Aiken, Alex? They went after Spoh. I reported that, okay? Others reported it at the same time. Eric Spoh obviously, he knows a lot about that particular organization, okay? I would say they know as much about Portland as any other organization elite. So I feel like they've done due diligence on this, but again, it doesn't mean it's going to happen, but they're not flying into it blind. I'll just say that. I think they understand Dame, but they also understand the mechanics of how that organization is currently working, even though they made a change, and it's no longer Olshii running the organization, that they made a change at GM. Brady, but I'll go to this. If they get Dame, it solves every problem, right? 100%. I don't think at this point there's going higher. There's no next guy. There's no pushing things down the line. This is the guy that the, this is like the final boss. This is the final guy that you could possibly get. So there would be no excuse at that point in terms of going all in, like when we've had that conversation, especially with the whole Bradley Beal conversation, we're talking about holding out this, holding this out, waiting to, this is the thing that you're pushing all your chips in the middle of the table. So yeah, in terms of a basketball fit, it makes a ton of sense. I don't have to go into the specifics to I think make that case because we know what Damian Lillard is. He just dropped over 70 points this season. This is a guy that can just get his own bucket, that can score at all three levels, that can literally, I guess, put Jimmy Butler in different positions than maybe even Bradley Beal does it. And that's not even to take a shot at not getting Beal. It's just that Lillard's at that next tier where he can push a guy like Jimmy to the side in big games. He can do that type of stuff. So the question is, it's a different scenario as well because what are the follow-up moves? But my thought process is, you deal with the follow-up moves when you got to deal with the follow-up moves. You deal with the filling out the rest of the roster when you've got to deal with filling out the rest of the roster. You worry about getting Damian Lillard. Like if you can get him, you can figure out the pieces at the back end. We've seen what Spoke can do. We've seen, we joke around with the undrafted thing, but we've seen what they can do when they're in limited roles. If you get a core of that kind where it's just absolute talent like that with Damian Lillard, you can figure it out at that point. So yeah, I think that does figure out, kind of just figure out a lot of their problems. If you can get Damian Lillard, I mean, that's it. That's the move. And just to confirm what you're saying there, when they brought in Shaq with Dwayne, they literally started Damon Jones at point guard that year, right? And they are better now than they've ever been at finding guys to fill out a team. So it makes more sense than ever to go with the top heavy roster because they are able to find those guys over and over and over again. I'll just say this. And one other comment comes in. When is Pat going to speak? That's an interesting question. Typically that would have happened already, but I have not been given any indication he's going to speak before the draft. I think it's more likely that we'll hear from Adam Simon probably maybe Tuesday, something like that. They will do some kind of pre-draft thing because they always do it and nothing will be said about any pending free agent, anybody that they're going to trade for. Adam's going to frustrate people. It's not his fault, but that's the way that they're going to handle this. This comes in from Jason. What would have been your guys' preference, just Damon, Beale, and possible second trade with Tyler? You guys don't hear it enough, so thank you for the hard work. We appreciate that. I mean, look, it depends what the trades would have been. Damon is the answer to all of this. He's the whale. He's the orca. He's the perfect fit with those two guys that they currently have, both personally, professionally, adding another alpha, everything that you talk about. I just am dubious that this is going to happen. And that's even with the Heat doing whatever due diligence they're doing because I just don't believe he's going to leave. I'm still not convinced that he's going to leave that place. And you look at what the situation is. You're looking at the number three overall pick in the draft. If Brandon Miller goes second and Scoot falls to three, there will be more interest in that pick. But are you going to be able to get the kind of player that he's going to believe that he's going to want to play with? But even if not, I still don't see him actually pulling the lever here, even with all the smoke and saying, get me out of here. It just does not seem like that's the kind of person he is. People forget this, KG was the same exact way. And really, he had to be almost forced out of Minnesota. And that trade happened because Danny Ainge and Kevin McHale were friends from back in the day and they worked something out. And essentially, I mean, to be honest, Kevin McHale just did Danny Ainge a solid. Portland's not going to do the Heat a solid. They have no reason to do that. They'll do Dame a solid. Will they? I think they will. I think that if he says, I stuck with you this long, I want to get to Miami, I believe that they would do their best to get him to Miami. I do. But will he say that? That's the question. And for what? What are we talking here? It's everything but Jimmy and Bam. And you rebuild around the rest of it. And is that, and the elephant in the room is the Nets. Like, okay, so he. If he wants to go to the Nets and play with McHale, Bridges, and whatever else they're going to cobble together instead of Jimmy and Bam, then he's whatever. I mean, he's not going to win. So whatever. I didn't want him to begin with. Oh no, don't say that. No, no. Listen, if you rather go play with McHale, Bridges, and the Brooklyn Nets instead of Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo, you are not about winning championships. Period. Point blank. But it's not just McHale, Bridges, that they're going to end up with. I don't hear that ---- from anyone. Greg, just to counter that. They have 11 first round picks. I don't care. It's not going to be just McHale, Bridges. They're pure failure. If he chooses Brooklyn, he's not about winning because there's no precedent for them winning. End of discussion. All facts, no printer. You don't really need that. I mean that. Okay, look, here's the thing. I think the Nets thing is a real threat. I do. I really do. I mean, they have 11 picks, okay? Now, one of the theory that's been thrown out there is that Beal going to Phoenix may convince Dane that there's even less chance of him getting out of the West now because it's not only Denver that you're dealing with, but you're dealing with a better Phoenix team. How they fill that thing out, I'm not exactly sure, but whatever. They don't have any of their picks for the next 10 years, right across the board because it's all picks or pick swaps that they've sent somewhere else. But I understand that maybe he can be convinced to go East, but again, the Nets are in the East and they have 11 picks and it is the New York market. And it is the New York market. I know it's the second team in New York. I understand that. I get it. I know it didn't work for Pierce and Garnett. I know it didn't work for Durant and Harden and Kyrie, but it's still New York. Andrew Green comes in here and says, Alex, you don't think that the Nets would be a real threat for him? If he does, first thing, I don't think he's leaving. No, they'd be a threat. But if he's leaving, I don't understand why he wouldn't at least look at Brooklyn. Again, if he wants to play, he wants to play with Bridges for whatever reason. Hyken said that, that that's his number one guy he wants to play with. What is he doing? He'll be a threat, but I agree with Leif. But it's like, if they give up all the picks in the world and then whatever you've got to do to match the salaries, because it's a big contract, I just don't think the Nets have enough to really compete. They're going to be first round fodder, maybe second round fodder at best. And you know, that's better than what they currently have. I get why the Nets would want to do it. Like, you have just a ton of first round picks there. You can kind of speed things up with him and Bridges. You know, it's a decent combo. It's not going to win you anything. But that owner is willing to spend deep into the tax, too. That's true. I think he's the second richest owner in the league. And the other thing is, Bridges is definitely somebody that Dame wants to play with. But I wonder if it's more about trying to get them to trade for him more than, oh, I want to play with Brooklyn. I think it's just like, I want to play with one of my friends who so happens to be maybe a future all-star, because he's kind of on that path right now. That makes more sense. But yeah, I do think they're a threat for sure. They're kind of that team that's going to be in the mix. I don't know, man. I think I'm skeptical that nothing would happen if they just use that pick, if the Blazers use their number three pick. I'm skeptical that Dame is going to be cool with just running it back with the same team that couldn't even sniff a playing appearance. I mean, it's bad. It's not a good situation. I understand Scooter Brennan Miller might be helpful right away. There's a chance that that could happen. But how helpful? What are we even talking about here? Is your goal just to get back into the back end of the playoffs? Or what are you trying to do? He's in his 30s now. And he's locked down for several more years. So I'm wondering if they don't use that pick. He's going to kill this. I can't help myself. He's going to kill this whole thing about him being so loyal to Portland to go play with one-time All-Star Mikael Bridges. Are we being serious? And just say it out loud to yourselves. Like, it's not. I mean, ESPN will love the move. It's New York. Why would they? And then he'll be a second round down. They obsessed over the Nets for two years, three years. And those three guys played together like a total of 15 games. If Dame's going to do this, it should be a slam dunk where everyone says, oh, I understand why he's actually, like, lancing the hearts of the Portland Trailblazer fan base. Because he's going to a team that just won the finals. Like, or that got to the finals. Excuse me. I just think it's weird that people think that he's going to go for such a more lateral move. And now I'm going to shut up. I promise. All right. By the way, I just wanted to throw in the fact that I don't think that Mikael, I mean, I'm not the one with the sources here. But the fact that, like, this Mikael Bridges friend thing, like, the idea that he's, like, a tier ahead of, like, I think Bam is on the same level in front of, in terms of, like, friendship and wanting to play with somebody as Mikael Bridges. You heard him on these interviews. He wasn't screaming Brooklyn Nets when they asked him about possibilities of playing with guys. What's the first name he threw out there? Bam on a file. Like, the idea that it's, like, Mikael Bridges is, like, his ideal teammate. I don't know where that, like, blossomed to new levels. But Bam's going to get one, Brady. I hear everything. Like, we framed Bam as the next Dwayne in terms of recruiting, right? Well, he wore the Beal jersey backwards, right? He played in the Pro-Am with Mitchell. The Olympics with Damian, with KD. There still has not been a guy who said just Miami other than Jimmy Butler. And that was a Dwayne Wade connection. That's all. Like, yes, I do also a Jimmy Butler connection, right? That's a valid point for now. Right, I mean, at some point, like, we framed Bam. And obviously, everybody loves Bam around the league. He's, like, my top 10 popular guy in the league and all the rest of this. Represents the organization incredibly well. Has all of these friendships. Still waiting on the first here, though. I agree with this. Got to get one, right? You got to get one. Like, Dwayne got a bunch. He's got to get one. Well, Bridges and him are tied. They're still tied because they both have zeros, so. All right, so let me ask you this. And again, we have to close this at some point tonight because people got things to do, OK? But we appreciate our sponsors, all pro-construction builders, mortgagebuyerosh.com, oceansfinest.com, use the code 5 at prizepicks, F-I-V-E. And we've got Bobby Marks on tomorrow at 1 o'clock. So we'll take care of all your CBA questions on this. This one comes in from Boulder Coast. Everyone loves Bam, but they're really putting him in the friend zone. Wow. It does, it does, it does kind of seem this way. Maybe, and then this comes in from Mr. Fresco here. Maybe Jimmy recruiting Jalen Brown will be good. I don't think Jalen's going anywhere this offseason. But Brady, is there any player that you think, because you weren't on the podcast with Hyken, is there any player that you think that Portland could bring in for that number three overall pick that would make the Blazers legitimate top four contenders in the Western Conference? One of the Toronto guys, maybe? Maybe. I mean, I don't know. It's still tough because you have to still have follow-up moves. It's not just about getting one guy. I know the big one is the deal with the Pelicans because they can kind of get in that range and maybe a Zion going there. Maybe that's, I don't know if it's about being in the top four range. I think it's just about letting Dame think that he has enough talent on the roster to be competitive. And would Zion push that in that direction? Probably. Would one of the Toronto pieces? I'm not sure if that does. If maybe he would think so, if they're competitive. I personally don't think they would be competitive enough in the West. So it's difficult. It's, it feels to me like ultimately, with the position Portland's in, if we zoom out, it makes more sense for them than anything to keep this third pick. We're talking about a generational draft at the top of this draft. They have a chance. If there was a moment to kind of mentally move on from Dame, it's now. This is the one time for them that it makes sense. So it's just hard to look past that point, to be honest. Do you think there's any chance that Portland wants to move on from Dame but doesn't know how to do it publicly? Yes. See, that's the Heat's best hope here. The Heat's best hope is what Brady's talking about there. And I don't have any information to this effect. Ethan, I have a question. Yes. If this was, let's just go into a place of trying to believe what it would look like if Dame asked out. Obviously, it's still up in the air because, you know, there's a clock until draft night to see what they do with that pick. But wouldn't this be how he started getting that momentum going? Like I said before, because of the fact that he's under contract for four more years, he's made it so public about how he never wants to leave and he's never going to run from the grind and all that stuff. Like, wouldn't this be the thing that he would do it as little by little with these types of leaks and all that? Well, it is a save face move for him to a certain degree. But I'm kind of turning it the other way here, that Portland needs a saving face move, too, with its fan base, because the reality is they kind of wasted Dame Willard's career. Like, they got to one conference finals, right? He's the only guy that they've ever drafted who was elite, who stayed healthy. Okay, Bowie, Walton, Roy, Oden, right? All of them collapsed. Like, Dame's the one they don't have an excuse for. The rest of them, they have excuses. Clyde is the one, right? But even with Clyde, they didn't win a championship. He had to win his championship in Houston. He got to the finals, right? But he won the title in Houston. So I feel like, in some ways, they need to save face with their own fan base here. And that is where what Brady's talking about could be the Heat's opening, and maybe they think that's their opening, which is that the Blazers are open to trading him, but they kind of need a reason. And if you get a guy, let's say Scoot falls to three, right? And you've got your playmaker of the future there in place. Well, there's your reset, as you're talking about, okay? And then you have Anfernee Simons, or you trade him for something else, and you have Shaden Sharpe, who was promising as a rookie and is really, really young. And then you kind of go that direction, and you're sort of further along, maybe, than potentially than a Utah or an OKC or some of these teams that are resetting there. A couple of the other names that came up, and I just think this would be absolutely hysterical if this happens. What if this all ends up with Zion and Miami? Can he get in shape before October? I mean, it's so like, they're only thinking about moving him for the number three pick to maybe draft Scoot. Like, it's just, I don't see it. Why would they want to trade him here for what? I don't know. I'm just throwing it out there. There's so much weird news out there right now. Well, because look, we didn't think Lamar Odom was coming to Miami in 2003, right? Because they went after Elton Brand. But there was a plan to create it. I understand that. No, but I'm just saying, sometimes there's a move that you're not seeing that they're kind of looking at, and I'm just throwing it out there because we also heard the name Draymond in a few places recently. Both Greg and I did in Making the Circles, and I don't really understand that one because to me, I would have drafted him in 2012 when they should have, okay? But here you are, okay, towards the end of his career, and I don't know how a bam Draymond front court's gonna work from a spacing perspective, although nobody will ever score against them. Just comes in Zion failing the first BMI heat culture test. Yeah, that's not gonna be like when Jimmy signed and one of the first things that happened was he got on the scale next to Pat and he was so nervous about it, okay? I don't think Kyle ever got on that same scale, but Jimmy did. Myron says Levine and Miles Turner. Those are other names to look at. I mean, Levine's someone they've looked at certainly before. We don't know what Chicago's gonna do, and Chicago's kind of stuck in a weird place right now, kind of towards the bottom, middle of the East. But I just, you gotta look at the move behind the move sometimes, and maybe I'm too trapped in history, and this is where I'm too old, where I'm expecting the Heat to have plans beyond plans beyond plans, because they always did before. But I do go back, and it doesn't seem lately like any of them were working, but you go back to 2003. They went after Elton Brand. That was the traditional guy that Pat would go after, back to the basket, post-up player, 20 and 10 guy and all the rest of it. They went after Elton Brand knowing that if Sterling matched, Donald Sterling was the owner at that point, that if he matched, he was unlikely to match because he never spent any money, but if he matched, the offer sheet was ready for Lamar Odom, and Elton Brand got back to his phone on the beach, was pissed off that it was a match. They sent the offer sheet to Odom. Odom comes in, and then Odom became Shaq, okay? A year later. I'm not, Taz, I'm not gonna comment on that one. I'm not, I'm not. I thought you were about to go there. As long as they don't trade for Mariah Bills. Look, I'm just gonna, we probably should end this right now. I'm just gonna say, okay, that I have faith in this front office from 27 years of following them since Pat came down, but I'm also not blind at this point, and I don't, I'm not gonna just sign off on saying they're getting Dame Lillard just because they didn't get Bradley Beal, and so they must know they have Dame. No, but they better know they got something. They better know they have something. Teru says, eventually, Elton Brand helped us get Jimmy. See, he did, actually. They were in the finals a week ago, folks. Don't forget it. They were. It's not so bad. Yeah, you know what? This is all, this all sounds good until we're debating whether they should match a $15 million a year offer to Max Struess and Gabe Vinson, and then we're heading a totally different direction. All right, all right. We appreciate everybody following us, and I appreciate everybody not torching us. Again, we are the reporters. We report on what we hear. We're gonna try to keep it as real with you as we possibly can. I will just be very honest about this. I thought they were getting Bradley Beal. I did, too. All the momentum, all, like Tenzo Washington says, I'm gonna leave here with something. Some of the comments tonight are great. It's not gonna translate at all to the podcast feed. We apologize, but we'll do a regular podcast with Bobby Marks tomorrow, but I thought they were getting Bradley Beal. All the momentum was the same as the Jimmy Butler momentum, and then the Phoenix thing popped up, and even when that popped up, to me, that felt like leverage. Obviously, it was not. Credit to James Jones. Credit to Shams, who had the Phoenix part first. We'll get an autopsy on it. We'll find out exactly what happened. Sometimes, it takes a day, a week. Sometimes, it takes a year, but ultimately, you find out what the haggling points were, but I'll stick to this. They cannot bring the same team back. They cannot. I'm not gonna endorse that. I don't care how they try to sell me on that. I'm not gonna endorse that. The vibes will be... What's the opposite of saying the vibes will be immaculate? Isn't that what people say? There will be no vibes. They'll be in hell? Well, I think training camp's here, not the Bahamas this time, so it'll even be worse because I can't drown the sorrows of the blackjack table, but it will not be a good scene if they bring the same team back. Is Oladipo their off-season acquisitions? Oh, boy, we're ending there. Have a good night, everybody. Even Tyler.