For weeks now, the future of Portland star Damian Lillard has been the talk of the town.
Thanks to consecutive postseason defeats (dating back for almost a decade), questions about Portland’s ability to compete have been raised, lending legitimacy to the idea that Dame might not be happy about his chances to win a ring in his current situation.
Nonetheless, despite the persistent rumors, Dame remains in a Blazers jersey and has denied any speculation that he wants out.
In fact, according to an Eastern Conference source, Dame might wait until the trade deadline to really decide what he wants to do.
(via Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report)
“It sounds like he is not getting moved anytime soon,” the East source said. “From what I’ve heard, [Lillard is] going to give it a chance and then decide closer to the [trade] deadline.”
Today, the Blazers have a pretty solid team on paper. Besides Lillard, the roster includes CJ McCollum, Jusuf Nurkic, Carmelo Anthony, and Robert Covington (to name a few).
But on the court, the pieces just don’t mix — and it led to an embarrassing showing in the 2021 playoffs.
Needless to say, Portland needs to mix things up if they want to convince Lillard that they can win a Ring.
How the Blazers will respond remains to be seen, but we can expect a number of moves to transpire over the next few weeks and months.
Depending on those moves, Lillard will figure out what he wants to do and if it’s worth sticking around. Obviously, it’s going to be a very important time for the franchise and it could well determine their status for years to come.
