Damian Lillard had interest in joining one other team aside from Heat and Bucks

It turns out Damian Lillard didn’t get his wish of being traded to the Miami Heat, where he’d get to join Jimmy Butler and the rest of the defending Eastern Conference champions. Sure, landing with a former MVP and NBA Finals champion in Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks is a fine alternative, but does Lillard really want to be there?

Prior to the trade, rumors from Lillard’s camp insisted that the only place he’d be willing to play out his next chapter was in South Beach. Reports even suggested that Lillard wouldn’t even show up to training camp if he wasn’t traded to Miami.

Obviously, Milwaukee is not Miami, but the Portland Trail Blazers sent the seven-time All-NBA point guard to the Bucks anyway. Is this really what the 33-year-old wanted?

According to Marc J. Spears, Lillard’s agent Aaron Goodwin changed his tune roughly 10 days ago after discussions with the Heat were headed nowhere. Suddenly, Lillard had a desire to join either the Bucks, or the Brooklyn Nets.

The Toronto Raptors were another team heavily linked to the Oakland, California native leading up to the trade, but there’s been no indication of whether the interest was mutual for Lillard.

While joining the Nets would have sent an even bigger shock to the basketball community, Lillard lands in a friendly atmosphere in Milwaukee, where he’ll have perhaps the best chance he’s ever had to compete for an NBA championship. That same chance to compete would have taken a lot more work, had he landed in Brooklyn instead.

Now we’ll never know what would have been better for Lillard’s future. The Nets were still a playoff team last season without Dame, and both teams fell victim to a first-round elimination, but the Bucks won 58 games, compared to the Nets winning 45, much of which occurred with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant on the roster.

Instead, Lillard forms one of the best dynamic duos in basketball, joining Antetokounmpo in Milwaukee at a time when talks were beginning to question the Greek Freak’s future with the Bucks. Now with Lillard on board, those outlandish rumors will disappear for good.