Lillard’s name has come up in all sorts of trade rumors since he said early this month on Showtime’s The Last Stand that he’d be open to a trade to the Heat or Nets. There was even a report last week that the Trail Blazers were trying to work out a deal with Miami to bring Bam Adebayo to Portland to play with Lillard.

The most interesting developments occurred last week in the lead-up to the draft. First, The Athletic’s Shams Charania said in an appearance last Monday on The Pat McAfee Show that Lillard “has really left it up to Portland. He wants to be there. He wants the team to get better.” But Charania couched Lillard’s desire to remain with the Blazers, adding that, if the team was unable to pull off a trade on draft day, “I do think Damian Lillard would have to look very hard at his future in Portland.” ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported the day before the draft that the Blazers were no longer listening to trade offers for Lillard.

So that’s that, right? Well, on Friday, the day after the draft—the day after Portland selected another point guard, Scoot Henderson, with the No. 3 pick—Lillard went live on Instagram from a club in Paris while Will Smith’s song “Miami” played in the background. Lillard didn’t say anything, but he did smile and chuckle as the lyrics “welcome to Miami” played. Lillard’s agent told The Athletic’s Sam Amick that it was “just a coincidence” that the song was playing.

Lillard met with Blazers management yesterday after returning from Paris, and Portland general manager Joe Cronin issued the following brief statement: “I met with Dame and [agent] Aaron Goodwin this afternoon. We had a great dialogue. We remain committed to building a winner around Dame.”

The crux of the issue between Lillard and the team, though, appears to be a difference of opinion over how that winner should be built. Lillard, according to multiple reports, wanted the Blazers to bring in veteran talent to support him by offering the No. 3 and No. 23 picks in the draft as part of a trade. Amick reported (before Monday’s meeting) that Lillard and the team have “shared enthusiasm” about Portland’s three draft picks this year (Henderson, No. 23 pick Kris Murray and No. 43 pick Rayan Rupert), but “nothing has changed about Lillard’s strong desire to play with the kind of high-level players that would make the Blazers contenders again.”

Amick also reported that Lillard’s “dream scenario” would be for Portland to re-sign Jerami Grant and sign Draymond Green in free agency, except that adding Green would require salary cap gymnastics.

It’s easy to understand why Lillard is thinking so hard about his future. He’s one of the best scorers of his generation, but time is running out for him to play for a winner. By adding Henderson and Murray to a roster that already includes other promising young players such as Anfernee Simons and Shaedon Sharpe, the Blazers are set up well for the future. But Lillard turns 33 in two weeks. He doesn’t have the time to wait for those guys to develop into a championship-caliber supporting cast. So will he find that supporting cast in Portland or somewhere else?

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The top five...

… things I saw yesterday:

5. Josh Pearson’s two-run home run to cap a four-run LSU fourth inning and put Game 3 of the MCWS all but out of reach.

4. Shohei Ohtani’s long home run to retake the MLB lead.

3. Mike Trout’s hustle to score on a walk-off wild pitch.

2. Orioles pitcher Cionel Pérez’s catch on a 104.5-mph comebacker.

1. Arkansas Travelers infielder Robbie Tenerowicz getting caught in a pickle running to first base and shooting a pantomime jump shot at the end.

SIQ

Which school did the Supreme Court rule in its favor on this day in 1984 in an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA concerning the ability to negotiate television contracts?

Notre Dame
Oklahoma
Nebraska
Ohio State

Yesterday’s SIQ: What was the nickname of Hall of Fame Negro Leagues outfielder Willard Brown, who was born on this day in 1915?

Big Bad
Downtown
Boomer
Home Run

Answer: Home Run. According to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Brown, one of the great power hitters of his time, got his nickname from the legendary Josh Gibson. Brown’s plaque in Cooperstown bears another nickname, too: “Ese Hombre.” In the Puerto Rican winter league, he was such a feared hitter that he was known simply as “That Man.”

Brown spent most of his career with the Kansas City Monarchs, playing 13 seasons with the team (including two before the formation of the Negro American League). Midway through the 1947 season, the St. Louis Browns signed Brown and his Kansas City teammate Hank Thompson. But Brown, who’d been crushing the ball for Monarchs that year, struggled in 21 games for St. Louis. His SABR biography posits that the unwelcoming atmosphere created by racist teammates and the Browns’ decision to bring them to St. Louis without a stint in the minors to adjust to integrated ball proved challenging. He was released after 21 games and never appeared in the integrated majors again.

Brown continued to crush the ball wherever he went. Playing in Puerto Rico the winter after his stint with St. Louis, Brown won the league’s triple crown with a .432 batting average, 27 homers and 86 RBIs in a 60-game season.

Brown continued playing professional baseball into his 40s. One of his best seasons came in 1954 when, at the age of 39, he had 35 homers and 120 RBIs in 140 games in the Texas League.

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