Blazers Talking to Teams Other Than Heat on Damian Lillard Trade, ‘Not Being Wowed’

A few things we seem to know about the Trail Blazers and their efforts to trade Damian Lillard:

1. They haven’t spoken to the Heat about a deal since July, as we relayed here. Miami is the only destination Lillard seeks.

2. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Lillard is expected to request a trade to the Heat if he is sent to a different team. (Full post.)

3. Blazers GM Joe Cronin said in July that a Lillard trade could take months. It may be more like years. Not really, but it sometimes feels that way.

But per Aaron Fentress of the Oregonian, regardless of which teams the Blazers are talking with, they’ve walked away unimpressed with offers for Lillard.

“They are talking to other teams in terms of trying to find another team who might give them an offer for Lillard, to other teams who might get involved that nothing to do with Miami and Detroit,” Fentress said on the Blazer Focused podcast, via HoopsHype. “And maybe Lillard goes to one of those teams that’s out there. I’m told that there’s not great traction in these areas, that they’re really not being wowed by anything that’s substantial.”

The Bulls are believed to be among the teams interested in acquiring Lillard, as we wrote here. The Heat, of course, are another.

But when it comes to Portland and Miami … well, it appears all is quiet on that front, with training camps set to begin Oct. 3.

“If you sat down with Miami and actually went back and forth and negotiated, which I’ve been told hasn’t happened, and people out of Miami have reported the exact same thing from their Heat sources that that has not happened,” Fentress said. “There has not been a ‘OK, we want this. Can we get that? Can we do this? Can we do that?’ That has not happened.”