Damian Lillard has repeatedly said that he wants to contend for a championship. After 11 years with the Portland Trail Blazers, he has decided to go make that happen somewhere else.
Lilliard requested a trade from the Trail Blazers, a move that will end the seven-time All-Star’s tenure with the team, two people aware of the situation said Saturday. The team later announced that Damian was who made the request.
“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,” Portland general manager Joe Cronin said in a team statement Saturday. “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.”
Lillard is getting interest from clubs like the Miami Heat, Brooklyn Nets and Philadelphia 76ers, amongst others, according to multiple reports. One of the informants told the Associated Press that he preferred Miami; the reigning Eastern Conference champion, although this does not guarantee that the Trail Blazers will work towards this particular move.
Damian is fresh off a season where he averaged 32.2 points for Portland. He is a seven-time All-NBA selection and was chosen to the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team but he has never been close to winning a title in his 11 seasons at the NBA.
Lilliard has met with the Trail Blazer many times in recent weeks, requesting that the roster be upgraded to the point where he can compete for a championship. But those efforts, clearly, have not been to his liking which is why he’s asking for a move.
His decision was divulged on the second day of NBA free agency after Portland made a big spend on the first night to reportedly retain Jerami Grant with a $160 million, five-year deal.
As excellent as his resume is, Lilliard has not enjoyed much in terms of postseason success. The Blazers have won just four playoff series in his 11 seasons there, making the Western Conference Finals only once during that period. They went 33-49 this past season, the second successive year of ending well outside the playoff picture.
Lilliard became the all-time scorer in Blazers history, passing Hall of Famer Clyde Drexler for the mark, in a December 19 game with the Oklahoma City Thunder. Dame is the only player in franchise history with seven All-NBA honours and one of three players to be named All-NBA first team while he was with the Trail Blazers (2017 -18). He is a seven-time All-Star, the 2012-13 Kia Rookie of the Year and a member of the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team.
He also received an Olympic gold medal, alongside the Heat’s Bam Adebayo at the Tokyo Games and could not stop talking about how much he loved playing with the Heat centre.
Besides being the Blazer’s top scorer, Damian Lillard is also No. 1 in 3-pointers made and attempted by a wide margin including Portland’s all-time leader in free throws made and free throw percentage. He ranks in the team’s top five in games played (769), assists (5,151) and field goals made (6,281) and attempted (14,299).
Lilliard is no doubt a dynamic athlete. He averages at least 24 points per match in each of the last eight seasons, and his career average of 25.2 ppg ranks fourth among active players (with at least 375 games) behind Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid and LeBron James. If that list was extended to every player without game minimums, Luka Doncic, Zion Williamson and Trae Young would be ahead of him too.
The only thing noticeably missing on his resume is a championship. And now he wants a move to change that.
“I would say I want to be remembered for who I was, not as a player, but the principle that I stood on regardless of how successful I was, how major the failure was, the criticism, what people thought I should have done, what people think of me … no matter what was happening, I want to be remembered for who I was,” Lillard said in an interview with former teammate Evan Turner for the “Point Forward” podcast earlier this year. “I stood tall. I’ve stood tall in every situation and I want to be remembered for that.”
It will take a team whether Miami, Brooklyn or any other place a massive haul of both players and Draft picks to convince Portland to trade Lillard. He will make up to $46 million in the coming season and may make as much as $216 million over the next four years if he uses his option for the 2026-2027 season.
Although Dame was loved in Portland, there were rumours surrounding his future with the club when they chose point guard Scoot Henderson with the No.3 overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft rather than package the pick for a proven player.
In an interview with Casey Holdahl of Blazers.com a day after the 2023 Draft, Cronin was questioned if the team was in danger of losing Damian Lillard, this is how he answered:
“No, I don’t. I think Dame badly, badly wants to win and he’s probably being more vocal about that than ever but I don’t look at that as a negative. I look at that as he’s passionate about this, it matters deeply to him and it matters deeply to us. I think the reason you haven’t seen major issuers from us or the reason you still see Dame in our gym every day or still meeting with [coach] Chauncey [Billups] and I constantly is because he wants us to work. He’s bought in, he wants it to work here and he’s challenging us to get it done, which I think is more than fair and he’s earned that.”
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