It appears that there may be a big name available for trade this offseason, as Portland Trail Blazers franchise cornerstone Damian Lillard is reportedly planning to request a trade in the coming days, according to True Hoop.
The report has made waves on social media, and Blazers’ big man Jusuf Nurkic even chimed in on Twitter slamming both the report and the person reporting it: “Y’all really about to believe a guy with a name Henry abboott” and “That’s my brother and you still have a better source??”
Interestingly, a new interview Lillard did with Yahoo Sports’ Chris Haynes dropped on Friday. While the report indicated Lillard would address the report following practice on Friday, he did say this about the situation in Portland:
“There are few reasons: One being I’m not getting any younger. Our environment has always been great. We’re not losing a lot, but we were eliminated by a shorthanded Denver team that I felt we should have beat. I just walked away from that really disappointed. I was like, ‘Man, this just isn’t going to work.’ We’re not winning the championship, but we’ve got a successful organization. We’re not a franchise that’s just out here losing every year and getting divided. We have positive seasons; we just don’t end up with a championship. So I feel like at this point, I basically made the decision that if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll always be where you’ve always been. Just like I hold myself accountable for a bad performance or hold myself accountable to make sure that I work my ass off when I’m training, I must be accountable for saying what needs to be said even if it’s not popular. And that just comes with age. When I was younger, I felt like maybe I’ll be out of place, but I feel like I’ve earned the right to say we must do better. We must do better if we want to win on that level.”
