PORTLAND, Ore. — The much-anticipated news broke Wednesday of the Portland Trail Blazers' plan to trade superstar Damian Lillard. Even though Portlanders have been expecting the trade for some time now, the release of a three-way trade with the Milwaukee Bucks and the Phoenix Suns quickly provoked an outpouring of reactions on social media.
Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported that the Blazers will receive point guard Jrue Holiday from the Milwaukee Bucks and center Deandre Ayton from the Phoenix Suns. Portland also gets a 2029 unprotected first-round pick from Milwaukee and unprotected first-round pick swaps in 2028 and 2030 from the Bucks. The Blazers will also will receive rookie forward Toumani Camara from Phoenix.
The Blazers will send Jusuf Nurkic, Nassir Little and Keon Johnson to Phoenix and Milwaukee will send Grayson Allen to the Suns.
Dame himself addressed the news with a vague, tantalizing tweet ahead of any public statements to the press — saying that true Blazers fans and Portlanders will be "addressed truthfully, " but "casuals" will not.
Naturally, many Blazers fans are heartbroken — even if not all of them were surprised — but most were happy for Lillard.
“I’ll cheer for him on the Bucks for sure, but him and Giannis are going to be pretty scary,” Blazers fan Kyle Kirsch told KGW.
“Let him do his thing, let him be happy, he’s done a lot for Portland, Portlanders shouldn’t be mad at him," Sherby Cullom, another Blazers fan, told KGW. "He’s been a positive focal point and he’s done a lot for the community as a whole. Portland’s always going to be his home regardless of where he goes.”
“I was at a conference and I was looking at the news and I was shocked that Damien, you know he’s been saying he’s loyal to Portland and that he’s going to be here forever and now he’s out,” Blazers fan David Avalos told KGW. “Once you have a star like Dame leave, it doesn’t matter what pieces you get it’s not going to be the same.”
But some of the quickest reactions came from Milwaukee fans, many of whom seemed eager to see Dame in a Bucks jersey.
“Actually, compared to the Heat trade I would say that this is definitely a step up. I hope that we flip Jrue Holiday, even though he’s a good player he just doesn’t fit our timeline,” Blazers fan Leo Garber told KGW. "I mean he’s given us a lot of good years and I hope him the best, you know ... (if) the Bucks do something big I’ll definitely be happy for him. I’m a Giannis fan too.”
Another big takeaway? A lot of people think that the real losers in this trade were the Miami Heat (and the 76ers a close second) because someone didn't want to play ball. Lillard made no secret of the fact that he wanted to be in Miami, but the Heat were conspicuously absent from the three-way trade that materialized.