Blazers Ramping Up Trade Talks on Damian Lillard

The Trail Blazers are aiming to give star guard Damian Lillard his wish and move him elsewhere.

Actually, Lillard’s wish is to be traded to the Heat — and it is believed Miami is indeed one of the teams Portland has spoken to recently. But it appears that’s not the only team in conversations with the Blazers.

“My sense is that the Blazers have done a lot more talking with teams in the last, say 10 to 14 days, than they did probably in at least a month plus prior,” ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski said, via RealGM. “A big part of that is the league is back to work now after Labor Day, and training camp is starting to approach. And that’s the next real deadline in this process.

“But I think Portland, what they’ve been trying to do, is see how they could put together multi-team deals that would get them the assets that they would want. Draft picks, young players. There might be a team that their best asset is a veteran player that doesn’t interest the Blazers, but there’s a third team who might want to take on that veteran and then send whether it’s a young player or picks in part to Portland.

“So I think they’ve been in communication with a lot of teams trying to find a structure of a deal that can get them a Damian Lillard trade. We’ll see now how much traction they can get between now and the start of camp.”

Despite being warned by Lillard’s agent to stay away, several teams beyond just the Heat have considered trading for him, sources told Hoops Wire. Several others have offered to act as a third-team facilitator.