Now that Damian Lillard is a member of the Milwaukee Dollars, there might be enough of retroactive research of the months that preceded it. Did the Blazers play games their playing cards proper? May just Lillard have achieved the rest another way? For some, the weighty query is why Lillard, then making it recognized that he sought after to play games for the Miami Warmth, were given traded in other places.

There are lots of techniques to respond to this query. One is to argue that Lillard, via signing an extension that can permit him to put together upwards of $63 million in 2026-27 and upcoming singling out Miami as his most popular vacation spot, were given in his personal approach. Every other is to indicate the finger on the Warmth for no longer being competitive plethora of their pursuit. The truth, although, is that it would no longer have mattered how Lillard or Miami treated the status. If the Blazers didn’t need what the Warmth needed to do business in, there was once incorrect business to be made.

“They just didn’t want that stuff” isn’t just about as attention-grabbing as a private vendetta on Portland’s section or some large mistake via Miami. However on the subject of everyone is announcing it.

• Consistent with The Athletic’s Sam Amick and Shams Charania: The 2 facets talked greater than as soon as in July; talks by no means went anyplace. The Blazers’ preliminary ask was once Jimmy Butler or Bam Adebayo, and, in July and August, the Warmth had been ready to do business in a offer that might have returned “up to three” first-round choices to Portland, in conjunction with Nikola Jovic, cap sleep, select swaps and second-round choices, with Tyler Herro finishing up on a 3rd crew. The Blazers had been “disinterested” on this, and, via the while Goodwin reached out to the Dollars and the Brooklyn Nets in mid-September, Lillard was once “convinced” that it could be “virtually impossible” for Miami to procure him.
• From ESPN’s Zach Lowe: “The two sides appear to have had no meaningful dialogue — and maybe none at all — since late July, per league sources. The Blazers had no major interest in any individual Miami player or draft asset, and limited interest in whatever combination Miami might cobble. The sides were far apart in initial talks, sources said.”
• The Miami Usher in‘s Anthony Chiang reported that Portland “never expressed much interest in what the Heat was willing to offer” and that, then a dialog in July, “communication between the two sides was very limited” — when the Dollars offer was once coming in combination, the Blazers didn’t effort to restart talks.
• Yahoo Sports activities’ Jake Fischer reported that, for lots of the offseason, Portland and Miami “did not have significant conversations,” and he described their negotiations within the future moment as “nonexistent.” 
• At the “Lowe Post” podcast, Lowe mentioned, “I think Portland maybe just didn’t want what they had. One GM put it to me like this: Usually in a trade there’s one asset a team really wants from you to make it work. The Heat did not appear to have that asset.”

Milwaukee didn’t have, say, a 21-year-old Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to do business in the Blazers. But it surely was once ready to offer them a host of stuff they sought after. Portland now controls the Dollars’ first-round choices in 2028, 2029 and 2030, and it could be affordable to want this to having an collection of choices and swaps from Miami, for the reason that Milwaukee has an used roster and does no longer have the similar historical past of luring stars in separate company. The Blazers additionally (for now) have Jrue Diversion on their roster, they usually most likely concluded that Tyler Herro wouldn’t be valued as extremely as Diversion as a business piece. Agree!

And upcoming there’s the Deandre Ayton piece — in line with The Athletic, that a part of the offer were within the works since mid-July, and it was once “an essential component to any Lillard trade” from Portland’s perspective. It’s imaginable that the Blazers may have labored this right into a matching offer with the Warmth (i.e. Caleb Martin, in lieu than the Dollars’ Grayson Allen, may have long gone to Phoenix), however’s no longer a walk in the park — Allen and the Suns were connected for months, relationship again to the in the long run anticlimactic Jae Crowder saga. Ayton has turn into an especially divisive participant for a former Refuse. 1 general select signed to a max agreement, however he’s simply 25 years ancient and suits this rebuilding Portland crew one million instances higher than Nurkic did.

It isn’t cloudless that the Warmth actually did “everything they could to acquire Dame,” as Goodwin mentioned they did. ESPN reported that they “were reluctant to toss in every player and pick and swap the Blazers might have wanted in the end,” i.e. all of the choices, all of the swaps, Herro, Jovic, Martin, Jaime Jaquez Jr., their selection of wage filler. This knowledge, alternatively, doesn’t need to be obvious as damning and even specifically consequential. Portland’s entrance administrative center knew all alongside what an all-in do business in from Miami would appear to be, and it spent months seeking to assemble a extra interesting possibility. When it discovered one, there was once not anything for those two facets to speak about.