Damian Lillard's Agent Is Now Reportedly Calling Teams To Basically Threaten Them To Not Trade For Him

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What, you thought we were done with daily Dame updates? Grow up Peter Pan, Count Chocula. This is the NBA in 2023 where drama and rumors and posturing rules all.

In today's episode, we apparently have Dame's agent calling all 29 other teams and basically threatening them to not trade for his client because if they do guess what? 

Now I want you to prepare yourself for this because it's very scary. Like Goosebumps books level scary. Did I just date myself? Whatever. What will happen if someone other than the Heat trade for Dame?

Oh….that's it? Dame will be an unhappy player unless he gets what he wants? You know, despite not having a no trade clause and the whole $200M guaranteed to him over the next handful of years

unfortunately whoever now trades for Dame will be getting an unhappy Dame. I wonder what that means exactly. Is he going to pull a Ben Simmons and just refuse to play? Given his age I can't imagine that to be the case. Is he not going to play as hard or something and just mail it in for the next 4 years? I dunno, that feels unlikely.

So if I were a team that had a package that the Blazers liked and wanted to get into the Dame business, isn't that all that matters? In most cases winning cures all and if that's a team that has a real shot to compete for a title, something Dame himself said he wanted, why would he be unhappy? 

I'll be honest, I thought the will he won't he bullshit that we dealt with every summer was annoying, but I have to say post-trade demand Lillard has been equally if not more annoying. If he wanted to pick his team, he didn't need to sign his most recent extension. Basically, he wanted the max money and now still wants to dictate where he goes after he bailed on the Blazers. Sure that's his right, but it's also the team's right to not give a shit. 

I do think that a lot of the pushback from non Heat fans largely stems from the fact that Dame isn't demanding a trade to their favorite team. I look at this a lot like tampering. Nobody likes it when a player from your favorite team gets plucked away by tampering, but those same people have no issue when their favorite team successfully tampers with someone else. If Dame was pulling all of this shit to go to the team you root for, chances are you'd be cool with it. That's just how things like this work.

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So why do I care about this?

Yeah, I'm just going to go ahead and say no shot. Not because Brad is afraid of trading for an unhappy Damian Lillard, I just don't think that's going to happen. As soon as we got the trade demand I've pretty much accepted the fact that Lillard is going to the Heat. Stars get what stars want, regardless of how much the Blazers want to posture. 

But back to the Dame "unhappy" part. I do wonder if the Blazers just say fuck it and hold onto him until he expands his list if they truly have no interest in the Heat's package. I mean the relationship is already over, so who cares? What's the downside, Dame sits out and the Blazers are terrible and end up with a high lottery pick for their rebuild? 

It has been interesting to see the shift in narrative around Dame ever since this shit started though. Not that he gives a shit or anything, but I think it's fair to suggest how he's perceived is certainly taking a hit. All that not running from the grind stuff one day to now having his agent call 29 other teams to threaten them into not trading for his client all so he can go where he wants because if not he'll be "unhappy". Like I said, I still think he's ending up in South Beach because we've seen this movie before, but that doesn't mean we aren't going to have more drama along the way.

What's next you think? I bet we get the "sit out" threat. That's the next card you play if the "unhappy" one didn't work to truly scare off other teams. I can't wait to check back tomorrow to find out!