Damian Lillard's long-term future with the Portland Trail Blazers appears to be in doubt, due to frustrations with the team's coaching search and hiring of Chauncey Billups, as well as concerns on whether the franchise can truly build him a championship contender.
But has Lillard already played his last game for the Blazers? Is the 30-year-old superstar guard soon going to request a trade?
"It sure seems like it's heading that way," Bleacher Report writer Sean Highkin told The Zach Gelb Show on Tuesday. "The thing about him requesting a trade is, even if he goes to [Blazers GM Neil Olshey] tomorrow and says, 'Trade me,' I don't think it's going to happen this offseason. Because he's got four years left on his contract, and none of the teams that are good enough contenders to want to trade for him really have a lot that they can offer Portland that would be fair value. So, I don't really see it happening anytime soon.
"Here's what it comes down to: I think what the roster looks like is going to be more important than who they hire as the coach. If Neil Olshey just decides, 'Okay, the entire problem with last season was coaching and we're just going to get rid of Terry Stotts, bring in Chauncey Billups, this is the coach I want, keep the roster exactly the same,' then Dame might be looking at it and saying, 'Really? We're just going to run this back?'
"Whereas if they, let's say, trade CJ McCollum for Ben Simmons or make some major shakeup that really gives them a different look and really is a talent upgrade on the roster, then Dame... this might be salvageable there. But the way that it's been handled so far doesn't make me feel like Dame is going to be a Blazer for the rest of his career as much as maybe I felt that way six months ago."
Lillard, who signed a four-year, $176 million contract extension back in 2019 that runs through the 2024-25 season, averaged a team-high 28.8 points and 7.5 assists during the truncated regular season. He also averaged 34.3 points and 10.2 assists in the Blazers' first-round playoff loss to the Denver Nuggets.
Despite four first-round exits in the last five seasons, Portland has appeared in the Western Conference playoffs for eight consecutive years. No other team in the NBA has a longer active streak of postseason appearances.
The entire NBA conversation between Highkin and Gelb can be accessed in the audio player above.
You can follow The Zach Gelb Show on Twitter @ZachGelb and Tom Hanslin @TomHanslin.