What do the Portland Trail Blazers owe Damian Lillard?

Some notes from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski on the Damian Lillard saga:

• The Portland Trail Blazers are prepared to accommodate Lillard’s request to be traded, however they don’t seem to be prepared to accommodate his request to be traded particularly to the Miami Heat … until Miami presents the most effective commerce supply, that includes a mixture of younger expertise and helpful draft picks.
• Lillard’s agent has been telling groups that could be serious about buying and selling for Lillard that they might be buying an sad participant, since he’s totally decided to go to the Warmth.
• Regardless of these warnings, the prevailing perception amongst NBA executives is that Lillard, whose contract features a $63.2 million participant possibility in 2026-27, will play exhausting wherever he lands.
• Portland normal supervisor Joe Cronin plans to do what’s greatest for the franchise, and that may imply dragging this out for the subsequent couple of months (and even longer) — at summer time league in Las Vegas, he’ll attempt to decide which potential commerce companions are severe about making a deal.
• The Blazers do not need to take again Miami’s Tyler Herrowhose four-year, $120 million extension kicks in subsequent season, however groups have advised ESPN that they’d ship a great first-round choose (or extra) Portland’s strategy to purchase Herro in a three-team commerce.

What do the Blazers owe Lillard? He’s their all-time scoring chief and arguably the most effective participant in franchise historical past. Throughout his 11 seasons in Portland, he has signed three contract extensions and persistently maintained that he wished to guide the staff to its first championship since 1977.

To Lillard, with a purpose to preserve him within the fold, they owed him some win-now strikes this offseason. Lillard turns 33 this month, and said in April that he wished “an opportunity to go for it.” He and the franchise gave the impression to be on the identical web page at that time, however when Portland moved as much as No. 3 within the draft and the staff did not get the type of commerce gives that the entrance workplace deemed acceptable, it chosen 19-year-old level guard Scoot Henderson. The Blazers couldn’t make any vital roster updates on the quick onset of free company, both, so he requested to be traded to the Warmth.

To Portland, Lillard isn’t owed a lopsided commerce to the vacation spot of his choice. If Cronin is “devoid of sentiment,” as ESPN described him, citing executives who’ve talked to him, then he’s merely doing his job. Even when he wish to ship Lillard to Miami, it’s his accountability to make selections which can be within the long-term curiosity of the franchise. With a purpose to get the very best commerce bundle from the Warmth, the Blazers have to leverage gives from different groups. If Miami has not but supplied all the pieces it presumably can, then the Warmth-or-nowhere technique from Lillard’s facet may very well be backfiring.

About that: ESPN notes that Miami can supply its 2028 and 2030 first-round picks, plus 5 choose swaps, 2022 choose Nikola Jovic and 2023 choose Jaime Jaquez Jr.offered that they wait till July 31 to execute the deal. Some further context:

• The Warmth can supply three first-rounders, not two, if the Oklahoma City Thunder comply with take away the protections on the 2025 choose Miami owes them. The choose is protected 1-14 in 2015 and is then unprotected in 2026.
• The quantity of choose swaps that may be included depends upon the parameters of the commerce and the choose that’s going to Oklahoma Metropolis. If the Warmth amend the choose so it is merely an unprotected 2026 first-rounder — OKC needs to be pleased to do that —  then they will supply their unprotected 2024, 2028 and 2030 picks, plus three swaps (2025, 2027, 2029).
• Miami may commerce its 2029 and 2030 second-round picks, and a 2026 second-rounder (the least favorable of Oklahoma Metropolis, Dallas and Philadelphia’s picks).
• There may very well be haggling over what else is within the deal, even when Herro is included and rerouted to a 3rd staff. Are the Warmth prepared to surrender Caleb Martin? Would they take again Jusuf Nurkic from Portland? Might Kyle Lowry or Duncan Robinson be concerned?

In a best-case situation for the Blazers, a Warmth commerce would get them a few rotation gamers on rookie contracts, three first-round picks, three choose swaps, three second-round picks, a veteran on a team-friendly however successfully expiring contract (Martin), salary-cap aid and no matter a 3rd staff will surrender for Herro. That may very well be sufficient, provided that A) there are solely so many groups which can be serious about paying Lillard greater than $60 million when he is 36, and B) Portland wouldn’t be utterly ranging from scratch in its rebuild, because it has Henderson, Shaedon Sharpe and Anfernee Simons on the roster.

That’s not, nonetheless, a home-run deal, just like the one which the The Minnesota Timberwolves obtained for Rudy Gobert final summer time. It’s properly inside the realm of chance that the Blazers can discover a higher bundle elsewhere.

The day that the Houston Rockets fulfilled James Harden’s commerce request, proprietor Tilman Fertitta requested him whether or not he’d want to go to the Brooklyn Nets or Philadelphia 76ers, according to Fox Sports’ Yaron Weitzman. If and when the Blazers are weighing two equally acceptable gives for Lillard, it is sensible to ask him the identical query. There is no such thing as a assure that they are going to be in that place, although, nor that one of many two groups would be the Warmth. It’s value remembering that, as sturdy as Harden’s relationship was with the Rockets group, they did not get a commerce achieved till they have been a couple of weeks into the season and an already awkward state of affairs had turned untenable. Even when all people concerned needs to maneuver on shortly and cleanly, it does not all the time work out that manner.

In 2017then-Cavs GM David Griffin in contrast having LeBron James on his staff to being answerable for Babe Ruth’s legacy. “It is virtually like a sacred belief that the child provides you,” Griffin told Michael Lee, then of Yahoo Sports. “He is so good, in his personal proper, by himself, that he type of mandates it’s a must to be a title contender simply by his presence alone … and should you do not capitalize on the years he has left, then disgrace on us.” It has confirmed tougher to construct round Lillard, however the dynamics are the identical: He put his belief in Portland’s entrance workplace, and it has not been in a position to put collectively a contender on his timeline.

James, nonetheless, repeatedly signed short-term offers with a purpose to put strain on Cleveland administration. If the roster wasn’t sturdy sufficient, he was by no means distant from free company. Lillard, then again, signed a two-year, $122 million extension final summer time, as a substitute of merely taking part in out the remainder of his contract, which might have allowed him to hit free company on the finish of the 2023-24 season. By signing that extension, Lillard concurrently quieted the noise about his future with the Blazers and gave up some management by way of choosing his vacation spot within the occasion that he ultimately did need to go away.

Till Lillard requested for a commerce, Portland owed it to him to attempt to assemble a championship-caliber staff with him on the middle of it. That doesn’t, nonetheless, imply searching for quick upgrades at any price (i.e. buying and selling away potential stars for non-star veterans), though it’s very comprehensible why Lillard could be dissatisfied with how this offseason has performed out.

Now that Lillard has made his request, the Blazers owe it to him to attempt to discover a commerce that provides him an opportunity to win a title and units them up in addition to attainable for the post-Lillard period. However that does not imply they need to commerce him on his phrases. They solely have one alternative to make this deal, so if Miami makes the second-best commerce supply, they owe it to themselves to take the higher one.