The Damian Lillard trade saga has come to an end, and he is not with his preferred team, the Miami Heat, but with the Milwaukee Bucks, led by Giannis Antetokounmpo.
According to Awful Announcing, “The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugtoz” has also reigned in their opinions regarding Lillard not going to the Heat.
Immediately following the initial reports of the bombshell trade, there was an agreement for a spontaneous live stream. Le Batard also offered analysis on the implications, from a broad perspective, of Lillard being denied his way.
Le Batard mentions, “More interesting to me is after, what is it, a decade or 12 years of total player empowerment? Damian Lillard is the crossroads on, ‘No, we will not respect your power and your leverage and your relationship with our city,”
“You want to leave? OK. You don’t get to choose where it is you go. You want to go to Miami? We’re going to send you to something close to the opposite of Miami.””
“We’ve been saying for years, why do you always have to do what [James] Harden wants? He has a contract, he doesn’t have a no-trade clause. You’ve gotta call the player’s bluff. And Lillard wasn’t able to get dirty in public on behalf of wanting to get here. He didn’t want to ruin the fanbase loyalty that he has with Portland.”
“And so now he gets the power taken away from him and sent to a place he doesn’t want to go. To me, that’s the most interesting part of all of this is the place that it stops on player empowerment is Damian Lillard. You’re too old and you have too much money left on your contract. You can’t have this power.”
Lillard apparently welcomes the agreement, and it is a positive scenario that points to the fact that he will in fact start with the Milwaukee Bucks. He intended to go to the Miami Heat. However, the Bucks and Suns came in with the trade.
He isn”t the first star player to not be traded to his chosen squad, either. Jimmy Butler and Ben Simmons went through a familiar situation.
