Blazers’ Damian Lillard ‘Absolutely Did Not’ Request Trade, Says Insider

The Damian Lillard saga with thePortland Trail Blazersis reaching another crucial point this offseason.

While there’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding Lillard and the direction he and the Blazers will take, NBA insider Brian Windhorst made one thing for certain on hisappearance for ESPN’s起床.

“This was the meeting that a lot of the league was watching to see if Damian Lillard requested a trade, and he absolutely did not. In fact, from what I understand, the tenor of the meeting was he doesn’t want to put pressure on the Blazers, that he wants to see how they do in free agency, and he’s going to give them that time to do that. So, this is an interesting strategy move.

Lillard is simply putting the ball in the Blazers’ court. Perhaps this is a strategy to make him not look like the bad guy if he does eventually wish to move on from the Blazers, but he is once again putting faith into Portland’s front office.

NBA insider Chris Haynes reported that the Blazers are “committed to building a winner” around Dame and Portland has this offseason as an opportunity to do just that.

Perhaps that means trading the likes of Anfernee Simons or Jusuf Nurkic to get better fits next to him or it could mean dealing No. 3 overall pick Scoot Henderson in order to bring in a bona fide sidekick.

There’s still a lot that we don’t know yet, but what we do know is that Dame has yet to ask out.