🚨 Woj breaks down Damian Lillard's trade request from the Blazers 🚨 #nbatoday #nba

Well, what more can you tell us about how we got to this point? Yeah, Malika, the timing is interesting for Damien Lillard's trade request today. I think in his conversations with the organization, at least going back several days, that last Monday meeting in Portland, the expectation was he was going to give the organization a chance to get through free agency and see how they could improve the team. And on the opening night of free agency, they committed in Portland $160 million to Jeremy Grant to return to the Blazers, certainly with Damien Lillard in mind. And now, less than 24 hours later, Lillard has asked for a trade. He prefers a trade to the Miami Heat. Now, he does not have a no trade clause like Bradley Beal did. Certainly, he's got significant years and money left on his deal. When he's 35, 36 years old, he'll be averaging over $60 million a year. And so I think for Portland now, I think their view is going to have to be what is the best deal they can get for Damien Lillard. It's not going to be a big market. I think it's going to develop here. And certainly Miami is a motivated team. But I think ultimately, I think Portland still wanted time and was trying to see if there were some trades in the marketplace. Sometimes once free agency settles and teams don't meet needs, there's another cycle of trades and deals to be made. But for Portland now, they've got a trade request from Damien Lillard. And the expectation is they'll accommodate it. They've got very good, a very good developing young core in Portland, and they can start moving toward a rebuild. Woj, can we dive a little bit more into that? You mentioned the Miami Heat is one team that Damien Lillard would prefer potentially to be traded to. What does the rest of the trade market look like for him? Well, teams who have interest, the Clippers, the 76ers, to name a couple who are very much win now veteran teams. Do they have the assets that it would take to get a deal done? Certainly you start moving pieces around in three and four team deals. That would certainly be a part of it. But I think Miami is going to have a motivation. They know that Lillard wants to be there. They don't have the most attractive assets. Miami draft picks, to their credit in that organization, you never think they're going to be great picks when you're making trades with Miami because your organization just doesn't bottom out. Tyler Harrell would certainly have to be the centerpiece for a deal. And he's certainly owed over $100 million over the next several years. Maybe not the deal you want with a young team. You have Anthony Simons on a similar contract in Portland. It's not going to be easy for Portland to get back a lot of value in this trade. You saw what Phoenix got for Bradley Beal, a different circumstance. But these older players with tremendous money left on their deals, you're not seeing teams falling all over themselves like they just were a year ago when it was Rudy Gobert. Kevin Durant was certainly a huge haul. But I think for Portland, you know, they've got to go out and find the best deal that sets them up. Again, Dame Lillard does not have a no trade clause. They can send him wherever they like. But in the end, Miami might turn out to be the team that gives them their best offer. Woj, do we have any idea at this point? I know this is still very new. Again, Damian Lillard requesting a trade out of Portland this morning. Do we have any sense of what the timeline would be on seeing him move to another team here? It's really impossible to tell, Malika. These typically these deals you've seen them last summer and Kevin with Kevin Durant with Ben Simmons prior to that, where these went on for months and Simmons was never traded from or was ultimately traded from Philly after a full year. And so, you know, James Harden is on the market in Philadelphia now. Are there multi-team deals, you know, that, you know, when you start to put together big salaries, win now type players, where there's a way to piece it together. But certainly, you know, if you're the Portland Trailblazers, just hours after you've committed over $160 million to Jeremy Grant, who if you're rebuilding, reshaping your roster, that's not the kind of investment you would make. That's going to be an interesting contract on their books if they part with Damon Lillard here and have to reboot this. You can see some of his accolades. He's the leader of the franchise in points, in free throws, in three-pointers. If he's traded, it'll end the fourth longest active tenure with a team in the NBA. Obviously, he's been with the league. He's been with the Portland Trailblazers since 2012. He stuck with them, Mark and Zach, through the last two years when they didn't make the playoffs. But I think this was sort of a, okay, I'll believe this when I see it. And now this day has finally dawned. Zach, your reaction? My reaction was not shock, honestly. It seemed like we were heading here and it was just a matter of time and a matter of what Damian Lillard wanted to do. And this is a sad moment for Portland. You know, this is the greatest blazer in history. And I know people say the Blazers, well, they never made the finals. They got swept in the conference finals. They were consistently good for Damian Lillard's entire time there. And there's pride in being consistently good. Until the last couple of years when injuries and kind of the rebuild started and all of that. It's not easy to make the conference finals. And Damian Lillard gave them every ounce of everything that he had in playoff clutch shot making, in availability, in leadership. And you talk to any player that has played with that team, any coach that has been on that team, the tone he set in the locker room about what the Blazers would be about under his watch, about winning and togetherness. And I go back to when they got swept by New Orleans in the 2018 playoffs. That was a moment that would have broken a lot of organizations. And the Blazers came back the next year and made the conference finals. And the most important reason they came back the next year and made the conference finals was because that dude held it together, stood by his teammates, stood by his coaches. And he doesn't care any more about winning today than he did yesterday. Remember, there was all that commentary. Well, does he care about winning? Does he just want to be the guy in Portland? He's cared about winning the whole time. Nothing has changed. And now, you know, there are very few guys there that can tilt the balance of power in the league by themselves. He is still one of them. He had the best season of his career last year. If he were healthy, I think he would have made first team all NBA. He's that dude. Yeah, they averaged over 32 points per game last season. And taking a team, a franchise to eight consecutive playoff runs, that's nothing to sneeze at. But now, Damian Lillard's time in Portland, it looks like it is coming to an end. Your reaction, Mark? Well, first of all, you saw him in the early stages, you know, being at the University of Portland, you got to see him close up. His jersey is getting retired. No one will ever wear O. I call it O. Letter O. Oakland, Oregon, Ogden. That's right. But people are probably asking, what is the tipping point? Why now? Why not last year? Why not two years ago? Right? And I talked to Damon, asked him once, are you loyal to a fault? And he's like, no, I'm not loyal to a fault. But basically, the tipping point started on March 22nd, when he was shut down by the Blazers with, quote unquote, calf tightness, right? The time Dame's average in a career high, 32 points a game. The Blazers at that time were five games out of the 10th spot, the last spot for the play in Oklahoma City did that. I mean, was in that spot at the time. And Dame still felt like, hey, we could creep back up. We could get into the, to the plan. And if we get in there, we could win it. But they shut him down. And that was with the thought that, okay, we're gonna shut him down to get assets, like the third pick in a draft, to get veteran guys to help me. They got Scoot Henderson. They kept Scoot Henderson. They didn't trade Scoot Henderson with the third pick. Yeah. You know, and so when Dame met with him, it was a Tuesday with Aaron Goodwin. I think it was a last ditch effort to be like, hey, man, if y'all want me to stay, you're gonna have to do something dramatic. And I think the time just, just ran out, you know. But I think when you look back to where it started to go south, is when they shut him down. And then you see the Miami Heat go from the play into the finals. The Los Angeles Lakers. The Los Angeles Lakers. So when he had to watch that happen, I think that, that certainly pushed him over. Yeah. I think there's no question Damian Lillard is a competitor. I know. Oh, does he want to win a championship if he stays in Portland? That's, I think all of that is bunk. I don't think that, that has, there's any validity to that. But it was interesting around the draft, there was sort of this conversation as to, it's either or. Is it the number three pick Scoot Henderson, or is it Damian Lillard? And it didn't feel like it was quite that harsh of an ultimatum, at least to me, Zach. It more felt like, okay, what's going to happen after? And the contract that we saw Jeremy Grant sign yesterday, congratulations to Jeremy Grant, it just felt like now the options for the trailblazers, they weren't that great to retool. The conversation we had yesterday was not just about contending, but truly being in a championship window. And that's, it's really hard to build that type of roster. Yeah. And look, the draft was what, I don't even, I've lost all track of time several days ago. I don't know the idea that in the first 36 hours of free agency, that the blazers would do enough to turn over their team and show Damian Lillard that they could win. That's, that was never going to happen. It's too quick of a timetable. So would they have been better off? Had he just done this before the draft or at the draft? Maybe. I don't think they signed that Jeremy Grant deal yesterday. If they know this is coming, I think they were thinking, you know, maybe we'll just try to get this contract in a number where we can trade it. And Oh my God, now he's just kind of on the team. Exactly. I will check real quick. Has he signed it? Like, can they use him in a sign? I don't think you, they, well, if they sign it, he can't be traded. He can't be traded until January. But, but has he signed it though? I don't know if he's physically signed it, if he's allowed to sign it, but once the deal is agreed to, you don't see it back. I will say this though. They have scoot. Yep. They have shade and sharp. So they're already on a fast track to rebuild. And the Western conference, everyone is gearing up to win or try to win. Even the Rockets with Fred Van Vliet, there's a window for the Blazers to go back to the bottom and get another high pick here. So not all is lost for them because Woj laid out the Miami heat as a possible destination. The Clippers is a possible destination for him. I want to bring in our front office insider, Bobby Marks, because Bobby has the trade machine and Bobby, I am curious what teams have the best chance at landing the seven-time R star. Can we start with the Miami heat since that's a preferred destination reportedly? Yeah, we're going to start with Miami right now. And I think I'm looking at it from the perspective of Joe Cronin, the trailblazers GM. I'm adding certainly Damian Lillard and I'm getting rid of the Yosef Nurkic money. I want it all off, right? So when you look at Tyler Hero, Kyle Lowry, Caleb Martin, Nikola Jovic, I want it all. I want the draft rights, Jaime Yaquez. I want a 2028 and a 2030 first. And when you look at it, it works. The goal to get that money off your books also. Like for the Miami heat, what about the Brooklyn Nets? Well, here's the complicated thing, Malika. They agreed yesterday to trade Joe Harris to Detroit. We still have Harris on our books. Now, can you rope in a three-team deal here? Because it's hard to get the money to work here. But for this sake, we're going to say it's a three-team deal. And we're going to go Spencer Dinwiddie, Joe Harris. We're going to go Nick Claxton. Remember, they have all these draft picks down here. We're going to throw in a 2025 first from Phoenix, a 2029 first from Dallas, a 2029 first from Phoenix for Damian Lillard. And that works. This is more of a pick package and certainly a young player like Nick Claxton. OK, wait a second. Joe Harris is on that, though? Well, what I said before is that the trade has not gone through with Detroit. So if Brooklyn is in play, does Detroit kind of get looped in as a third team? Because the problem is if it doesn't, what you can send out in a deal certainly shrinks the pot here as far as money in the trade. OK. All right. What about this? Can we do the 76ers here real quick? Yes. Yep. We are going to do Philly. This is a little less complicated here because it's really what you see is what you get in Philadelphia. Tobias Harris, Hyrees Maxey and a 2030 first. And that's what Philadelphia has to offer. OK. And that's that's what it is. One team that's really interesting, though, that Ramona Shelburne reported there is some interest in for Damian Lillard is the San Antonio Spurs. What could work out there? Well, they got everything. I mean, they're kind of my wild card before we started the Lillard talk here. And I just look at if they want to kind of dip their toe in the deep end with Damian Lillard, they still have cap space. Right. So you don't have to send out all that contract here. So I'm looking at, you know, certainly Lillard. I'm not doing Kelvin Johnson, you know, certainly a guy like Doug McDermott, maybe Devin Vassell. But they have all their draft equity. They've got their own first, certainly a Charlotte first. They've got a Chicago first. They've got a Toronto first and Atlanta first. Like they've got all these different picks here. And when you look at it, it works. And it's all about draft picks as far as going out and putting in a trade. Last but certainly not least, Bobby, can you just work on the Clippers for me here? Yeah. Well, and why I'm doing this, too, I know Mark asked about Jeremy. Jeremy Grant has done a sign in trade. He has not signed his contract yet, but Grant would have to agree to going in a sign in trade. And that's awfully complicated as far as getting him as far as to another home here. So we're going to talk a little Clippers. Certainly. Now, I don't see what Kawhi Leonard or Paul George, what does that do for Portland? Right. You want to get younger here. I mean, they certainly talked about all these expiring contracts. You know, certainly a player like Terrence Mann. And when you look at draft picks, they got a 2028 and a 2030. I mean, it's hard for me to see the Clippers in play just because of their draft equity and a kind of a lack of young players. But as I said, they do have $40 million in expiring contracts. If you're looking, you know, just to certainly get that money off your books.