Damian Lillard’s preference is to reportedly be traded to the Miami Heat. He hasn’t said much on requesting a trade from the Portland Trail Blazers this summer, but Lillard made it clear where he wouldn’t want to play.
Despite being from the Bay Area, the 11-year NBA veteran said during a recent episode of the “It Is What It Is” podcast that the Golden State Warriors are a hard no for him.
“I respect what they’ve been doing over the last eight, nine years or whatever, and I’m from there obviously. That’s home,” Lillard said on the podcast. “But I can’t go be a part of that. They won four championships. What I look like going to try to do that? And say ‘I’ m joining my home team.’ There’s somebody that plays my position (Steph Curry), that’s behind LeBron (James), the best player of this era. To me, it don’t even make sense. I’d never do nothing like that. I’d lose every year before I go (to the Warriors).”
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Things have been quiet on the Lillard trade front of late. Reports surfaced at one point that his agent told teams to not even reach out to the Trail Blazers if they weren’t the Heat. That caused the NBA to release a memo to all of its teams explaining that further comments from Lillard or his agent could result in discipline.
Portland hasn’t been wowed by what Miami has had to offer in terms of a trade package, and they’ll likely need a third team in order to get it done, which only makes things more complicated.
Lillard recently told Marc J. Spears that his desire to win a championship his higher than ever. So it makes sense he’d want to join the reigning Eastern Conference champions — though Paul Pierce doesn’t believe the Heat would make it out of the first round if Lillard were to join them.
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NBA training camp is right around the corner and Lillard figures to join the Trail Blazers when camp opens. It’s unclear what his future holds or where he’ll play once the 2023-24 season begins, but we know the Warriors are clearly not on his list.
