What if the Trail Blazers just don't trade Damian Lillard?

[Street Hunger]

What if the Blazers just keep Lillard and insist that he play? What's he going to do? Kinda sit out indefinitely?

A team doesn't have to pay a player if the player just sits out, right?

alternatively, what if the Blazers trade Lillard to a team he doesn't like. so, not the heat. Is he going to sit out there? He has been a good NBA citizen this entire time. He would lose a tremendous amount of money and also hurt his reputation if he literally decided not to compete because he didn't like the team.

[coin24]

Shouldn’t have signed the extension if he didn’t want to be there. Guy is a career loser, all this shit about him deserving to win is rubbish.

I hope they trade him to Orlando or Detroit.

[Lakers Legend#32]

Can't Dame has burned his bridge.

[Spurs m8]

So Kawhi v2?

[Clifton]

He has been a good NBA citizen this entire time. He would lose a tremendous amount of money and also hurt his reputation if he literally decided not to compete because he didn't like the team.
Well, he's already broken from his reputation a bit with this trade demand being public and being limited to only one team. I expected him to make the trade request private so that the Blazers could have leverage. Perhaps he already did this and was unhappy with the result. Anyway, it's a bad look. He was the franchise hero for 10 years, yes; but now he's proposing to torch the place to the ground by limiting what they can get for him, every way he can. As I say, bad look.

However, it's just a look. What goes on on the court matters way more, and I'm sure he knows this. I don't expect him to tank the season, and if he's traded to another team I think he'll play for them. He's just trying to use his leverage any way he can to get where he wants to go.

I have no idea what will happen, but I'm pretty confident that he won't be traded to the Heat (they have no assets and it's a bad look for management to cower this easily) but they won't trade him to a bad situation (this may be because bad situations don't want Lillard raising their ceiling and being unhappy, and/or because he'd rather just stay in Portland than have a similar situation somewhere else).

Anyway, has anyone else noticed that the team around Lillard has been decent for most of his career? Pairing him with another small guard wasn't great, but they were always decent, and the problem was always defense, which Lillard himself never really bothered about. People act like Lillard is like Kobe or prime Tmac. He was never considered better than around 7th or 8th best in the league. It's not an outrage that he doesn't have multiple titles; players of his caliber normally don't.

I'd like to see him swapped for Zion. Doesn't that make both teams significantly more exciting?

[John8204]

What if the Blazers just keep Lillard and insist that he play? What's he going to do? Kinda sit out indefinitely?

A team doesn't have to pay a player if the player just sits out, right?

alternatively, what if the Blazers trade Lillard to a team he doesn't like. so, not the heat. Is he going to sit out there? He has been a good NBA citizen this entire time. He would lose a tremendous amount of money and also hurt his reputation if he literally decided not to compete because he didn't like the team.

He could pull a Kobe and try for 40 PPG, of he could pull a Zion and get "hurt" and just not come back. The blame is also on the organization not the player...we've seen this happen so many times in the past that Portland's reputation is extremely damaged.

[bison]

Kind of a sad situation if you think about it. He’s still a high caliber player and it would be a shame to see him get John Wall’d at this point in his career. He has 4 years still left on his current contract

[JohnMax]

Portland will pull a San Antonio and trade him to a team he doesn't want to go to. They'll instantly win a championship and he'll accept his new team.