After years of stay at the Portland Trail Blazers, star point guard Damian Lillard has submitted a trade request as he wants to end his career on a high by winning an NBA Championship. While there are plenty of teams that want to land Lillard, which includes the likes of the Philadelphia 76ers, Los Angeles Clippers, Utah Jazz, Los Angeles Lakers and even San Antonio Spurs, he has himself declared his interest in joining last season’s finalists Miami Heat.
Sam Amick, a senior NBA writer opened up on Lillard’s trade probabilities. There are reports that suggest that the experienced point guard wants to be the final piece in the jigsaw for the Heat. His aim will be to help the franchise get back to the top and win NBA titles. The reports suggest that Lillard wants to play with Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo, forming a superstar trio.
“He wants to compete with Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo, to grow inside that famed ‘Heat culture’ system under Pat Riley and Erik Spoelstra while becoming the final piece to their championship puzzle,” Sam Amick revealed the entire situation surrounding the star point guard.
Interestingly, this statement falls in position with Lillard’s own statement during a recent interview where he was asked a hypothetical question about playing in any NBA team at the moment and he selected the Miami Heat without thinking too much.
“Miami is the obvious one. Bam [Adebayo] is my dog. Bam is my dog for real. But I mean I think Miami is the obvious one,” Lillard said in that interview.
Miami Heat are a very professional and successful franchise as they showed tremendous character to reach the NBA Finals last season after finishing in eighth position in the Eastern Conference during the regular season.
They started the postseason with an uphill battle against the Milwaukee Bucks. But surprisingly, they thrashed Giannis Antetoukounmpo and his team by 4-1 to win the first-round clash. They then defeated the New York Knicks to progress to the Conference Finals against the Boston Celtics. They led the series 3-0 with some exceptional performances but then allowed the Celtics to comeback and win the next three before closing it out in the final game to progress to the finals.
In the finals, there was some fight but it mostly looked like Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets were the favourites throughout the space of six games. The Heat at times were lost in the finals and they lacked a scoring option. With Tyler Herro recuperating after his injury, they needed someone to take up that role and hence they are bringing in someone as talented as Damian Lillard to fill that role and increase their chances at the NBA title.
Trail Blazers general manager Joe Cronin acknowledged Lillard’s trade request while also suggesting that the franchise wants him to stay. “We have been clear that we want Dame here, but he notified us today he wants out and he’d prefer to play someplace else. What has not changed for us is that we’re committed to winning, and we are going to do what’s best for the team in pursuit of that goal,” Cronin stated.
At this moment, a possible trade for Lillard may include a third team apart from Portland and Miami. Also, Tyle Herro has to be the player who will get traded in this deal along with others. But this definitely looks like the biggest story of this offseason as Lillard finally takes a step in thinking about himself and his career.
