Damian Lillard is probably making a whole lot of people uncomfortable within the Portland Trail Blazers organization.
A Twitter user asked the All-NBA point whether he’d be happy getting traded to the Los Angeles Lakers to play with LeBron James. His response was, if you’re a Blazers fan or staff member, less than ideal:
I’m typically a happy camper https://t.co/LvFoTwlEFW
— Damian Lillard (@Dame_Lillard) July 4, 2018
Interpreting this as a flat-out sign of displeasure is unfair. Lillard interacts with fans on Twitter all the time. Then again, he didn’t have to answer this question. And if he was going to address it, his response should have included some concrete declaration of allegiance to the Blazers unless he wanted us to be here, talking about his answer in uncertain terms.
Sure, on some level, this is unfair. But Lillard is a smart guy. He knows how the contemporary news cycle works. That he left us room to speculate doesn’t feel like an accident—particularly given the timing.
Get More Sports’ Chris Sheridan reported on July that Lillard is among the trade targets “being bandied about” the Lakers front office. Portland’s floor general no doubt got wind of this nugget over the following two days; the report itself was probably the trigger for the question.
And so, here we are, wondering if we’re overreacting to an innocuous tweet, or whether we should be prepping for Damian Lillard trade watch in the coming days and weeks and months.
