Analyst predicts Trail Blazers' plan, says they won't take Heat's Damian Lillard trade offer

With the outlook on Damian Lillard's future very much up in the air currently, the number of realistic likely outcomes in trade scenarios has quickly dwindled. 

Following the Portland Trail Blazers star making his lone desire to join the Miami Heat known, it's resulted in crickets due to the fact that it appears the team isn't interested in the best Pat Riley and company can put forward currently.

But with the looming likelihood that other NBA teams aren't overly interested in the idea of paying top dollar in a trade for a player who they don't believe will want to stay for the long haul, the question becomes — so, what's next?

This idea has been put out previously, but The Ringer's Bill Simmons gave his own opinion on what will happen going forward in the Lillard trade saga. He broke it down on "The Bill Simmons Podcast" and highlighted "that crappy Miami thing" the Heat are currently offering for Lillard.

"I know what Portland's gonna do. They're just gonna go into the season with Dame, they're gonna bank on the fact he wants to play basketball, and then they're gonna know that a better trade will be available in December. They're not gonna take that crappy Miami thing." Simmons stated.

The idea of the Blazers opting to stand pat has certainly been a talking point after discussions with the Heat seemingly cooled off. Obviously, Miami is going to continue to pursue the deal and potentially add in a third or even fourth team to try to make it happen. Even with all that being factored in, there's certainly no guarantee that the deal gets done.

It'll be interesting to see how things look or how the situation changes potentially for Lillard, the Blazers, or even the Heat if talks did potentially push out to December. Could there be a world where Lillard adds a team or two to his wish list? Or possibly a world where Portland is willing to come down slightly on their asking price? Anything could be on the table at that point.