The Miami Heat remain the only serious suitor for Damian Lillard. With the league’s unofficial late-summer vacation period winds down as a new season dawns, though, there’s at least a chance other teams more seriously engage the Portland Trail Blazers in trade talks for the seven-time All-Star.
Though Lillard and the Blazers are both “prepared” for him to open training camp in Rip City come early October, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports that “more conversations” await Portland as general manager Joe Cronin and company continue to rebuff Miami’s offers.
“Very little of substance has happened since the first several days of July free agency. This has been an offseason in the league, especially in the last few weeks, where I’ve seen this league shut down in a way it really hadn’t the last several years,” Wojnarowski said. But now, executives with teams are back from vacation, kids have started school. People are back in the offices, players are starting to come in for the start of training camp, working out in the facilities. So there will be more conversations between the Blazers and prospective teams over the next few weeks than there were certainly over the last few months. This is a deadline-driven league, the next real deadline of any real substance is the start of training camp. And I think you can expect the Blazers to talk with teams again before then but, I think this is an organization that is fully prepared, and I think Damian Lillard is also prepared, for the possibility that this training camp may start with him in camp.”
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