Heat Team-Up? Damian Lillard, Jimmy Butler Drop Musical Hints

The draft concluded Thursday, and with a week away until the start of NBA free agency, fans have started to look into every little move from star players.

Damian Lillard is fairly active on social media — he and Jayson Tatum had an interaction when the Portland Trail Blazers star admitted he didn’t want to play for the Boston Celtics.

The Trail Blazers selected Scoot Henderson with the third pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, and while Lillard wants to stay in Portland, it’s difficult for fans to imagine he wants to lead a rebuild instead of immediately competing for an NBA title.

The Miami Heat appear to be the likeliest team to make an aggressive move at Lillard, who turns 33 on July 15, and it’s a team he wouldn’t mind playing for.

The All-NBA guard caught fans’ attention when he went on Instagram Live on Friday and had Will Smith’s “Miami” playing in the background. But this was “just a coincidence”, according to his agent.

“The music was just a coincidence,” Aaron Goodwin told The Athletic’s Sam Amick. “Damian’s not disrespectful. He’s not an instigator, so he’s not going to do anything out of character. There would be no reason for him to do that. That’s why he laughed (in the video). It’s a funny coincidence that a DJ would put that on.”

The DJ also played Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” which includes the lyric, “I wanna feel the Heat with somebody.”

This very well might be all fun for Lillard, who is on a “working vacation” in Paris, his agent told The Athletic. The star guard hasn’t spoken to Portland about being traded or the draft, according to Turner Sports’ Chris Haynes on Friday. And multiple insiders said the Trail Blazers have no intent on trading Lillard and will only do so if he asks for one.

But Jimmy Butler was having his own fun on his Instagram story Friday. While showing which songs he was listening to, he included a track from Lillard’s “Dame D.O.L.L.A.” album.

So Lillard and Butler are stirring the pot, and this very well might be nothing, but the Golden State Warriors and Celtics shocked the league with their trades for Chris Paul and Kristaps Porzingis, respectively, so stranger things have happened in the NBA.

Boston certainly would hope Lillard doesn’t end up in South Beach as it would make an already tough Heat team an even tougher out in the postseason.