Portland Trail Blazers: Damian Lillard at war with media over trade rumors

The Portland Trail Blazers off-season continues to get stranger. This week, Damian Lillard and reputable reporter for TrueHoop, Henry Abbott, have been sparring over the reports he has released over the last few weeks.

The Twitter exchange can be seen in detail below.

You can see Dame’s frustration with Abbott, but it seems weird that someone with Abbott’s reputation would go to this much trouble, and put that reputation on the line, by making up false rumors. Clearly, someone in the Blazers or Dame’s camp is stirring the pot or passing on false information to Abbott.

Abbott was also, after the Chris Haynes report a month ago that Dame was unhappy, reported that he was going to request a trade within a few days. Again, I don’t think Dame is lying, but it seems very strange that Abbott would risk his reputation on this rumor and then the ensuing tweets from the last few days.

Henry also had a story where he claimed that Dame would be willing to forgo paychecks to get to a title team. This seems even stranger than the trade rumors, as people like Dame’s trainer and his media manager have come out in public saying that Dame is very frugal and looks to save money where ever he can.

It’s not clear who Abbott’s source is, but the old adage goes, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Someone passed this stuff onto Abbott for a reason, and I’m picking it there was some truth to it.

Let’s see how this develops over the off-season, as fans could still a major trade, or Dame wanting out.