The Heat are getting “frustrated” over the slow pace of trade talks with the Trail Blazers regarding Damian Lillard, Chris Haynes of TNT and Bleacher Report said on the latest edition of the “This League Uncut” podcast (hat tip to Kurt Helin of NBC Sports). It’s been nearly three weeks since Lillard made his trade request and told Portland officials that he wants to play in Miami, but there’s been very little progress toward a deal.
“Portland is telling them to, ‘Bring us your best offer.’ Miami would like to know what does Portland want and Miami is not getting that answer,” Haynes said. “And so they feel like things could be moving on a little bit quicker if Portland would say exactly what it is they want. Because obviously, Miami doesn’t have all the assets that Portland would want in a return for a Damian Lillard trade. So they want to know, okay, what do we have to get out there? What other teams do we have to get involved to make this work? And so far, the communication is just not there.”
On the Heat Check podcast, Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald expressed doubt that the Blazers are trying very hard to grant Lillard’s trade request, at least for now. Chiang said a source told him that Portland may be planning to hold onto Lillard for a while to see if he changes his mind about his future with the team.
That thought is echoed by Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald, who tweets that a team that contacted the Blazers about Lillard is skeptical that they actually want to move him. Jackson suggests that Portland’s goal may be to get Lillard into training camp, unless he makes the situation really uncomfortable for the rest of the summer.
There’s more from Miami:
- Jamal Cain has a qualifying offer to return to the Heat on a two-way contract, but he’s hoping for a standard deal, whether it’s with Miami or another team, Chiang writes in a Herald story. The 24-year-old power forward appeared in 18 NBA games as a two-way player last season. Cain is a restricted free agent, so Miami can match any offer he receives, but the QO can’t be pulled because the deadline has already passed. Several teams have interest in Cain, according to Chiang.
- Miami can’t sign players to Exhibit 10 deals until it has 14 players with standard contracts, but the team has received some verbal commitments, Chiang adds. One of them is from Drew Peterson, a 6’9″ shooting specialist from USC who played for the Heat’s Summer League team. Chiang suggests that Miami could take several weeks to sign any Exhibit 10 players while the front office waits to see if a Lillard trade materializes.
- Ira Winderman of The Sun Sentinel examines Miami’s Summer League roster and looks at who did the most to help their future with the organization.
Poor portland asking 10 draft picks for damian
Blazers need to make it 100% clear
Heat have no assets to offer for Lillard unless Heat offer Bam
100% transparency
Nothing else to talk, nothing
Details are as follow
Example, equal value of Durant deal
Bridges
Cam Johnson
4 Firsts
Portland isn’t getting a deal like the Nets got for Durant. Lillard is a great player but he’s a step or 2 below Durant.
Is he really? I agree Durant is the better player because of his height and skill set but Lillard was 32/7/5 on 46/37/91 shooting and has a history of clutch performances albeit never in a meaningful conference or league finals. We can look at the Durant, Mitchell, Gobert deals and all agree that the Heat have a challenge to put together a meaningful deal. If I’m the Blazers I have a heart to heart with Lillard and ask him to open up his preferred list of teams he’d play for.
The problem here though is that, the Blazers are not being upfront about what they want or what their intention is. How can the Heat know if they have or can get the assets needed to acquire Lillard if the Blazers aren’t communicating what they want? How can the Blazers go to Lillard and have a heart-to-heart about opening up the list of teams if they can’t tell Lillard that the Heat aren’t able to accomodate their demands if they aren’t even communicating with the Heat?
The Blazers have made this into being a lot harder than it has to be. It’s simple.
1 – Assess what you feel you need as a team for your future. And assess what you can realistically get for Lillard in trade value, but also in what realistically will be offered for him in this trade market.
2 – Go to the Heat and let them know what you want in the deal for Lillard…and give them a deadline to come up with a package or trade scenario that can happen.
3 – Either make the best deal possible from there, if the Heat put something together that works for the Blazers. Or, see what is the best offer possible, then go have the heart-to-heart with Lillard to open up the trade destinations, but with the Heat’s best trade scenario in hand to show him that the trade to Miami can’t be completed/accomplished.
The Balzers, Lillard and Heat need to move on past this. When you see this, it pretty much shows why Lillard has no faith in the Blazers. They’ve shown him for years that they can’t put a team around him. Now they are showing that they can’t have a simple conversation with the Heat about trade demands. And they don’t have a leg to stand on to say that they’re not holding things up because Lillard has done his job for the team over the years, and the Heat have the track record of getting deals done.
It’s going to start getting ugly for Portland with the holding out. Teams are moving swiftly with building next year’s rosters, so there is a shrinking window of opportunity to put a trade together. The Heat will walk away at some point. And Lillard will only get angrier as it gets dragged out. And for other future star free agents, it’s not a good look for Portland.
If this drags into training camp, it’ll just be a distraction for the team. It’s not like the Ben Simmons situation where the team could contend even without their star. Scoot, Sharpe, Simons, and the others don’t need this hanging over their heads.
Distraction from what? This team is in a full blow tabk next year.
Actually developing? If they were competing, I wouldn’t be worried about it. But Portland already has a history of not doing a great job developing their picks. Potentially making that worse seems like a bad idea.
So they weren’t able to develop Dame, CJ or Ant into serviceable NBA players???
Zack Collins, Swanigan, Nolan Smith, Claver, Elliot Williams, Oden…
Like, yes, they have success stories. But Dame was going to be a star from the word go. Simons and CJ are fair, though. But is “serviceable” what you want with a pair of top ten picks?
Oden was cursed because of health. The others didn’t develop for anyone. They just weren’t that talented regardless of what team drafted them. It’s not like they were lottery picks. The Blazers have had 8 top 15 picks in the last 15 years. Lillard, CJ, Scoot, Sharpe, M. Leonard, Justin Jackson, Ogden and Rush. 2 all-stars, 1 talented player who’s career was sidelined by injury, two young developing guys from the last 2 drafts and 3 busts in Leonard, Rush and Jackson. The last two were traded before ever playing a game for the Blazers.
Who have the Trailblazers drafted that went on to become something better once they left?
Gary Trent Jr. and Zack Collins both became rotation-caliber players right after Portland dealt them, for one thing. But it’s more that they draft a lot of guys who don’t even get that far. Similar to how Orlando or Phoenix were a while back.
@EonADS tell me you don’t watch the blazers without telling me you don’t watch the blazers. Gary broke out with Portland and was traded halfway thru his breakout season. Zach Collins couldn’t stay healthy. Both players were both rotation players prior to leaving. How they develop players is fine it’s cheap owners that has crippled Portland. Derp.
Not if the downside would be getting a significantly neutered return.
The kids will still get to play and develop. Would the situation be ideal? No. But they can stomach it. It’s not like this is going to trade on forever.
I highly doubt Portland wants to bench 2 of Scoot, Simons and Sharpe. This is posturing. And if you’re Miami and frustrated … move on. The problem is they’re backed into a corner by essentially dangling Herro (not that appealing of an asset with his injury and bloated extension). If they haven’t soured on Herro, then get creative to find him a backcourt partner (like trading for Cam Thomas, Norman Powell, Buddy Hield or Tim Hardaway).
They wouldn’t have to bench two of them. Sharpe is an athletic 6’6″, a good cutter and slasher that can jump out of the gym, he’d workout fine as a SF. Lillard is one of the best outside shooters in NBA history, at 33 it would do him and the team some good playing some possessions off ball while Henderson runs the point and learns from Lillard. Simons thrived as a microwave 6th man.
POR’s reported RFP was reasonable for its purpose. It’s both general and specific enough for MIA to respond to it constructively.
BKN used a similar template for KD, and PHX had no problem responding to it. Other teams did what MIA did here; no real response, just broadcasting their complaints. MIA has more time than those teams did ahead of the deadline, so maybe they’ll get down to it at some point. If they’re frustrated about timing, then stop wasting time putting out media reports complaining about it, as that’s always at best a waste of time (the people who matter either don’t care or are happy about it).
This is because Pat Riley is used to always getting his way. This is the equivalent of a temper tantrum from him. He has bullied teams, players, and agents into getting the best deals for a long time, in part because of all his connections and success in the league as a player/coach/executive for major organizations like the Lakers/Knicks/Heat. A lot of those connections are past retired, and these new guys don’t give a s**t about what Pat Riley says to them. The mob boss is ready to be put out to pasture. The times they are a changin’
CapN- Please don’t insult Bob Dylan’s words like that
Riley’s forte is free agents (direct or via S&T’s). He hasn’t successfully negotiated a real arms length trade for a star since the Shaq trade almost 2 decades ago. Maybe he’s trying to force this situation into that template, hoping POR’s FO ignores the fact that DL isn’t a free agent.
Wasn’t the ask two young building blocks plus 4 first round picks and possibly unloading Nurkic? What does Miami have to figure out?
That was the publicly reported outline, but it may not be accurate. That didn’t come from Portland’s FO, after all.
It’s a practice. If you can’t give an impressive response to a request, then complain about the sufficiency of the request. I haven’t seen it work very often, but I guess there are times that it has a better chance than the truth.
If I’m Miami, I’d walk away and let Portland come crawling back in few months once Lillard becomes a malcontent.
Why would they crawl back to Miami? They would just ship Lillard off to wherever they want. Lillard doesn’t have a NTC. Lillard’s “demand” is just a request with no teeth behind it.
Depends on how far Lillard is willing to take his demand. If this drags into training camp or even the season and he chooses not to play, it would show the rest of the league that he’s serious and that would hurt Portland’s market a lot. If Lillard is willing to play, it helps Portland, but if he’s not… well. That would work out in his favor in terms of getting his preferred destination, even if it hurts his rep.
Personally, I don’t see him doing that, but I’m not clairvoyant. It could happen.
If he plays that route then the worst thing that happens is that the end up with Herro plus whatever picks they were going to get anyway.
Not to mention how many millions of dollars they wouldn’t have to pay him. If dude holds out til trade deadline he loses like $23m!
Nobody is trading for a player that does not want to be there.
I honestly wish Miami would walk away. I think that would be the best thing for Portland. Maybe Dame would open up his options.
Nothing to offer won’t change unless it starts with Bam. Why Portland should settle for late first round pick or two, Lowry laughs, Herro laughs Robinson laughs harder.
Agree what does Miami have to offer for him? Lowry has very little value. Robinson and Hero are OK but no stars. They would need to trade Hero and Robinson to a 3rd and 4th team and bring back some young talent to the trail blazers. Deal doesn’t get done until closer to trade deadline when a team that goes all in to trade for Hero and Robinson and bring back young talent.
Agreed. I saw another post recently about Zach Lowe saying Miami “chuckled” when Portland asked for Bam. If I were Portland I’d just enjoy my summer and let Riley keep chuckling.
This is so obviously written by Dames agent it’s laughable. They’ve stated they want 4 first rounders and a young star player. Two of those first rounders being sought should be within the next two drafts.
They don’t want Herro. That should be plenty of direction for Miami and the fact is they can’t get it done.
Portlands best play is to hang on to Dame until the trade deadline and send him to whatever contending team offers up the most.
Hell yeah!
That’ll show any future stars Portland isn’t to be f***ed with!
Yeah because so many stars have just been lining up for the chance to play for Portland all these years.
What Portland does isn’t gonna change a thing in terms of drawing star players to Portland.
I would not be shocked if Lillard’s agent opened up the trade meet by adding other trans Lillard wouldn’t mine be traded to.
I want this saga to end sooner than later but am more than okay with Portland waiting it out until they get a return within reason of what they’re seeking for Dame.
I don’t think it’s cool of him at all to have had his agent calling interested teams and tell them it’s Miami or bust. That’s a cheap shot that Dame greenlighted for whatever reason. Prob the only thing he’s ever done that made me lose at least a little respect for him and I respect that man A LOT as both a person and professional.
He also signed a max extension with a team that was stuck in neutral at best, in need of a rebuild at worst and now he wants out, but only to one team. Every step of his career all he has done is take the most money, which is fine, I’d likely do the same, but he could have not signed an extension, left 50-60m on the table and become a free agent. Of course then he would only have like 180-200m to live on.
Dame will go where he wants to go. Catch up.
Freak Blazers Heat should just shut it down. Then we’ll see who squirms ……. Dame don’t gave to play. He’s got plenty of money.
Not how it works for guys without NTCs. You need to catch up. If Dame wants to hold out and not get paid, that’s his choice, and he’s the one who suffers as we watches the few prime years he has left go to waste just because he’s not able to dictate where he goes.
Plenty of contenders out there who could help give Dame a shot at winning a title. Portland has paid him a massive boatload of money over his career and loyalty is a two way street.
I’m stoked about how Portland has handled this so far and hope they continue to hold their ground until the right offer comes in.
Then why did he sign the extension instead of becoming a free agent?
All dame got to do is ask for a buy out. And tell every team if you trade for me. I’m not playing. So now Portland is stuck. That got trade him n get something or buy him out and get nothing.
Not how it works. He’s the one who just signed the massive extension instead of going to free agency. No one forced him to sign that.
No NTC, no say, NADA.
Congratulations on proving that you have no clue what you are talking about. Pefectly accomplished.
Makes the username all the more ironic lol.
I think it is all intentional. Ben Simmons is a question mark, which is stalling one of the most obvious trade partners in a 3 team deal. Toronto is also holding out. Nobody has an incentive to move except MIA. And BKN and TOR certainly don’t mind keeping MIA in limbo.
Get out of here with the Ben Simmons garbage. No one wants that bum, he’s trash and most certainly not the centerpiece type of player Portland would be looking for in return.
What they want and what they can get are two different things. Simmons is only 26. He also has a massive contract that can be used to match Lillard’s contract. Portland can pick him up and a bunch of FRP + other young talent and that is likely the best they are going to do. But he’s not selfish and can probably work well with the young back court. If he is healthy and fully recovered, I say he keeps this team competitive.