Damian Lillard goes from Heat trade target to Heat opponent: ‘It’s just another game’
For weeks this past summer, a trade that sent seven-time All-Star guard Damian Lillard to the Miami Heat appeared inevitable. But the inevitable never happened.
Instead, Lillard will be the Heat’s opponent on Monday night as a member of the Milwaukee Bucks. After requesting the Portland Trail Blazers to trade him to the Heat at the start of July, months of stalled talks between the Heat and Trail Blazers ended with Lillard being dealt to the Bucks in late September just days before NBA training camps opened.
“I’ve never played on their team,” Lillard said ahead of Monday’s matchup at Fiserv Forum when asked if it would be awkward to face the Heat following this summer’s trade saga. “I mentioned it that that was the destination for me when I asked to be traded. But I was traded here and I’m excited to be here, I’m happy to be here. I fit in great here. For me personally, that was the end of it. I never thought about it again after that.”
It took nearly three months for the Trail Blazers to fulfill Lillard’s trade request and he wasn’t moved to his preferred destination.
The Heat and Trail Blazers spoke about a deal shortly after Lillard made his trade request in July, but communication between the sides was very limited after that. The Trail Blazers never re-engaged the Heat before accepting the Bucks’ offer.
“I’m not going into [Monday] like, ‘This is the team I was supposed to be playing for,’” Lillard continued. “None of that. I know Jimmy [Butler], I know Bam [Adebayo]. We’re cool. But I play for the Bucks and I’m not going into it like that’s my former team or we were tied in or nothing like that. It’s just another game.”
Heat guard Tyler Herro was an innocent bystander through it all, as he was part of nearly every hypothetical Heat offer for Lillard this past offseason. Herro told the Miami Herald on Saturday that he has never spoken to Lillard, but “there’s no hate toward him at all” and “I respect his game.”
When asked what it was like to watch other players like Herro get pulled into trade discussions as a result of his trade request, Lillard made clear that’s part of what comes with being an NBA player.
“I think that’s a part of the game that we signed up to play,” Lillard, 33, said as he spoke to reporters in front of his locker at Fiserv Forum following the Bucks’ loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday night. “That’s part of the business. When we get picked and drafted into this league, it’s not something that we don’t know about. When parts move from one place, that means other people have to be a part of it. That’s the way it goes. It wasn’t something that I was concerned with or considering. All I can control is myself and that’s part of this business. That’s where I left it at.”
Lillard also downplayed Adebayo’s involvement throughout the process. The Heat’s two-time All-Star center developed a strong bond with Lillard while playing together and winning a gold medal with Team USA at the Tokyo Olympics in the summer of 2021.
Lillard, who spent the first 11 seasons of his NBA career with the Trail Blazers, said what he needed to say to the people who needed to hear it this past offseason. The result was a trade to the Bucks to form one of the NBA’s most dynamic duos with two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo.
“I think on the outside, people made more of it than what was actually taking place,” Lillard said of the Adebayo story line that became attached to his trade request to the Heat. “It’s not like I was calling him every day or nothing like that. I said what I needed to say to the team that I was on at that time and I went on about my time. I did my training, I spent time with kids and that was it. I’m telling you the real when I say it’s not that deep. Bam was my boy before I asked for a trade, he still is and that was the extent of it.”
