"...I was going to do everything in my power to control the market and help get my client to a place he wanted to be." -Aaron Goodwin, [Damian Lillard's agent] told [Chris Haynes of] B/R.

Goodwin admits it. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver put a stop to it:

 "We have advised Goodwin and Lillard that any future comments, made privately to teams or publicly, suggesting Lillard will not fully perform the services called for under his player contract in the event of a trade will subject Lillard to discipline by the NBA."-Memo to all NBA teams, July 28.

Joe Cronin does not admit to doing exactly the same thing but, according to Haynes, he did, just as directly:

On September 5, Lillard...said if a deal couldn't be worked out with the Heat, he would prefer to rescind his trade request and return to the Trail Blazers. Cronin's response to the seven-time All-Star was that there was no coming back.

Nothing is in quotation marks in that passage, which concerns me in relying heavily on it, so, taking Adam Silver's language, if Cronin told Lillard anything "suggesting" that Lillard could "not fully perform the services" he owed the franchise that he was under contract to would "subject [Cronin] to discipline by the NBA. 

And that is just that passage. In context, and to emphasize again, in Chris Haynes' context, Cronin,

1a) by lying to Lillard and the NBA,

1b) convinced a "reluctant" Lillard to "not fully perform the services called for under his player contract" and shut down for the last ten games of the 2022/23 regular season with a fake "calf injury" so that the "Blazers" would be assured a top three draft pick which they would use in a trade for a veteran to help Dame out in Portland.

2) It has been widely reported that Cronin attempted "to control the market" by 

a) not negotiating with Miami--barely talking to the "Heat" at all. 

b) asking Miami for the impossible--every tradable player, draft pick and pick swap--they had. 

So, two "markets", Portland's and Miami's, were taken off the table by Joe Cronin.

3) When Lillard, acting on his words that he would stay with Portland, participated in team workouts with other "Blazers" players on Sept 11 and continuing for eight days, Cronin never said a word to Lillard: didn't stop him from participating, didn't welcome him back--he never said one word to Lillard. Now, consider this from the player's perspective. What if Lillard had not shown up? Would he have been considered to be not fully performing his contractual obligations? Take it a step further: What if Lillard had flown to Miami and begun working out with the "Heat"! Hoo doggie, Adam would have disciplined him into oblivion.

The missing dot in this concatenation is the Saturday, Sept. 23 Zoom meeting among the principals and league and union counsel.  It is impossible to believe that Cronin's actions in 2 and 3 above were not vented in that meeting. It is also impossible to believe that none of Cronin's actions in 2 and 3 occurred.

I can be accused, justifiably, of repetition with this post; also of not letting it go because I'm a "Heat" fannie. But I cannot be accused justifiably of being a "Heat" apologist. Neither can I justifiably be accused of making a mountain out of a molehill. This is a mountain. It is the NBA that wants to smooth it into a molehill.