Damian Lillard Clashes With NBA Reporter Henry Abbott Over Trade Rumors

There have been some murmurs this offseason suggesting Damian Lillard might want out of Portland after another early playoff exit and the organization's handling of the Chauncey Billups hire. But there's been nothing concrete.

Recently, Henry Abbott over at TrueHoops published a report saying Lillard wants to get to a title team so badly that he'd "forgo paychecks" to make it happen. Shortly after he published that, Lillard appeared to squash its legitimacy by tweeting an emoji.

He and teammate CJ McCollum (at the center of plenty of rumors himself this offseason) had a back-and-forth about the report as well.

Things escalated today when Abbott pointed out his blog is called TrueHoop and he would never publish something that was untrue. A logical line of thinking. Lillard didn't buy it, though, and said as much to Abbott.

The two then had the following exchange.

I'm not entirely sure Lillard is calling Abbott a liar. Abbott isn't saying he got all his information from Lillard himself. The superstar is merely calling into question the legitimacy of Abbott sources, which would offend many reporters but isn't the same as calling someone a liar outright. Lillard appears to understand that differential, seeing as he said what Abbott is reporting isn't true, not that Abbott isn't telling the truth.

At the very least, this whole thing gave us "I'm the ultimate source." Outstanding stuff from one of the league's best players.