Leading the way
Being left off NBA All-Star roster doesn’t mean Blazers’ Damian Lillard isn’t having a great season,
Damian Lillard won’t be at All- Star weekend in Toronto this month, when the NBA’s best will be celebrated. The Portland Trail Blazers point guard who was invited to that elite party the last two seasons will be back home waiting for the Golden State Warriors to come to town.
Considering the way Lillard is wired, the defending champions might be in trouble.
The 25-year-old is nothing if not vengeful, the kind of competitor who is driven by slights real and imagined. It’s a mentality that helped him blaze this trail even before he came to Portland, from his days as a lightly recruited high school prospect in Oakland to his time at Weber State (Ogden, Utah), where he played all four years and evolved into a sixth overall draft pick in 2012.
But Lillard shouldn’t need an All- Star selection to take pride in this season because of the one factor that too often is overlooked in the discussion about individual play: winning.
Despite losing four starters in the offseason, chief among them perennial AllStar forward LaMarcus Aldridge to the San Antonio Spurs via free agency, Lillard’s Blazers have won eight of their last 10 games and are on pace to earn the most unlikely of Western Conference playoff spots. Not bad for a team that most critics had pegged for the draft lottery.
No one could blame Lillard for being bitter about his All-Star snub, especially considering the spike in his statistics. His scoring has increased from last season (21 points per game to 24.2, sixth in the NBA), and his assists (6.2 to 7.1 per game) and three-point percentage (34.3% to 37.1%) have as well.
Couple that with Aldridge earning his fifth All- Star spot in large part because of the Spurs’ collective success as opposed to individual impact, and it’s enough to make Lillard angry.
Aldridge hasn’t spent such little time on the floor (29.4 minutes per a game) since his rookie season (22.1), but he is integral to the Spurs’ 39-8 mark, which is second best in the league. He is 46th in scoring (15.8 points per game) and 23rd in rebounds (8.6 per game).
This debate about who was snubbed and who didn’t deserve an All- Star spot is a spin cycle of senselessness, if only because the system deciding such matters is far too flawed to warrant the outrage. Five starters are decided by fan vote, and the final seven rosters spots in each conference are determined by a coaches tally.
But amid all the pre-All-Star hype that is sure to come in these next few weeks, it’s worth keeping one eye on Lillard and his team as they attempt to outlast the Sacramento Kings, Utah Jazz, New Orleans Pelicans and Denver Nuggets, who aren’t far behind. He has meshed with third-year guard C.J. McCollum, the 24-year-old who is a serious candidate for the league’s most improved player award (6.8 points and 15.7 minutes per game last season; 20.7 points and 35 minutes this season).
What’s more, Lillard has shown the kind of leadership that will serve the Blazers well during this expedited rebuilding stage.
“I feel really good about it,” Lillard told USA TODAY Sports recently. “Coming into the season, I was saying it all along: ‘We’ve got a lot of talent. We’ve got a young team. So we may be a little bit inconsistent, but we’re going to go out there and fight, and we’re going to give ourselves a chance.’ And so far this season, we’re doing that.”
All while merging their youth movement with a championship mentality.
“You get up every morning, and you’ve got a young team,” Lillard explained. “The coaches see that we’ve got 19-year-olds, and we’ve got 22-year-olds, and we’re going to work. We’re going to earn our stripes, and we’re going to be ready. So it’s a battle.
“Every day, getting up, coming into the weight room, you’ve got to get your lift in. You’ve got to get out there and get your shooting in before we practice, and then we practice. And then we’ve got film, and then you’ve got treatment.
“It’s a battle, because you do all these things and you invest all this time, and everybody thinks it’s a rebuilding situation. So you’re invested in it (with) a championship habit but not a lot is expected. So it’s been a battle to go out there and be consistent in games and try to win games. It’s been a constant battle.”
And more often than not of late, it’s one they’re winning.