Damian Lillard ups the ante with the Trail Blazers

Seven weeks ago, Lillard informed the Portland Trail Blazers that he wanted to be traded to the Heat. Since then, there's been very little momentum on the trades, with Portland GM Joe Cronin saying, "if it takes months, it takes months" to deal Lillard, who has four years left on his contract.

So Lillard resorted to the modern era's most visible sign of discontent: unfollowing the team on social media. It's not clear when Lillard his the "unfollow" button on the Blazers on Instagram, though presumably @Blazers_Palace has been checking every day. Perhaps in an attempt to soften the blow, Lillard is still following the city of Portland's Instagram feed.

He's also still following the team on X and following teammates Shaedon Sharpe, Anfernee Simons and Jusuf Nurkic on Twitter. Lillard is even following No. 3 pick Scoot Henderson, whose drafting sparked Lillard's trade request in the first place. 

He's not following the Blazers' other first-round pick, Kris Murray, but he is following his brother Keegan, of the Sacramento Kings.

For his part, Lillard seems unbothered, telling reporters, " I would say I'm in a very strong place. My process has been the same going into the season that it's been any other time except I'm just getting better as a man. I think that really helps me as far as my career goes."

Perhaps unfollowing his team was a way to get better as a man. The reality is that Lillard doesn't have a lot of leverage, given how long he's under contract in Portland. Especially after the NBA sent a letter to all 30 teams essentially warning Lillard and his agent about telling teams he only wanted to play for the Heat.

So he's unfollowing the Blazers. Next, he'll mute their tweets. Third, well, maybe they're on Threads? This is just the first of many social media platforms. 

Until then, you better believe Lillard won't be heart-reacting to any of the Blazers' stories.