RUMOR Jazz Among Many Teams With Damian Lillard Trade Interest Despite Heat Desires

Portland Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard set the NBA world on fire Saturday by finally making his long-awaited trade request. It quickly became clear that Lillard wants to play for the Miami Heat, but the Blazers don’t appear willing to give in so easy if a Heat deal isn’t up to their standards.

Meanwhile, as The Athletic’s Sam Amick notes, teams around the NBA are scrambling to see if they can make a compelling offer for the Blazers to consider, even if Lillard wants to be in Miami. The Brooklyn Nets, Philadelphia 76ers, Los Angeles Clippers and San Antonio Spurs were all mentioned as other possible Lillard suitors, but Amick throws another team in the mix: the Utah Jazz.

“The list of teams that have interest in Lillard is predictably long, and it’s known to include Philadelphia, the Clippers and Utah,” Amick writes. “As Bleacher Report’s Chris Haynes reported, a third team would likely be necessary in a deal with the Heat. Miami would likely send guard Tyler Herro to Portland in a possible Lillard deal, but he makes little sense on a Blazers roster that is loaded with guards and would likely need to be re-routed to another team.”

The Heat truly don’t have all that much to trade for a superstar of Lillard’s caliber, and it doesn’t seem as if the Blazers are all that enticed by Herro given their situation. This is why a third team likely needs to be involved to make this work.

The Jazz, however, have a ton of assets they’ve built up through their superstar trades of Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert in recent seasons. Utah could make quite the hefty offer, but the problem, of course, is Lillard probably doesn’t want to be there. Would Danny Ainge be willing to take that chance and just toss a monster offer on the table anyway and see if Portland will bite?

Stay tuned as the Damian Lillard trade saga continues.