Damian Lillard has finally requested a trade from the Portland Trail Blazers. It’s a watershed moment in franchise history. The last such juncture came in 2015, when All-Star forward LaMarcus Aldridge chose between the Blazers and San Antonio Spurs in free agency, leaving Portland for Gregg Popovich and the lure of NBA titles. Before that, medical reports foreshadowed premature career endings for Brandon Roy and Greg Oden. Lillard’s request stands with those three events as the most significant inflection points in Portland since the turn of the millennium.
We’re going to cover the implications of the Big Moment in this post.