Damian Lillard

Damian Lillard
PG, 6’3, 195lbs, 26 years old, 5 years of experience

Slightly increased his efficiency without lessening his share of the workload, mostly via getting to the line more. This is Lillard’s team, and everyone and everything else must fit around that, not least of whom is Nurkic, The two demonstrated a decent two-man game in their time together, and thus whatever other problems exist elsewhere on the team, the offensive foundation for the future seems as though it is locked in for the future between those two.

Player Plan: Four years and circa. $115.5 million remaining. The building block.

[...] So, there’s that. And there is also the consistently dynamic and high scoring backcourt pairing of Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum. Lillard just completed the best season of his career, and even if his contributions are still almost exclusively on the offensive end (something he will not be able to get away with when tasked with trying to cover Steph Curry), they are so plentiful as to be elite. McCollum, meanwhile, can score on anybody one on one, with a great handle, shot making talent, and ridiculously subtle head fakes that work extremely well. Either can win any game single-handedly, and both at the same time definitely can. The Warriors will maybe be able to limit them, but not stop them.

When questioned about Portland's possible intent, Chris Broussard mentions that they should go for a point guard. It is certainly true that they need one, after the Raymond Felton experiment went so horribly wrong. But one of two things is happening here. Either Broussard is falling into the Jon Barry trap of believing all picks should be made with an eye to balancing the depth chart, when in reality it is very difficult to imagine a situation in which anything other than the best player available should be taken, or he happens to know that Portland are likely to take a point guard here.

Given what we know of Chris Broussard - who all night has spoken only in definitive statements of what teams think, rather than opinions, thereby constantly reaffirming himself as a guy who knows guys and is unwilling to engage in independent thought - it is clearly the latter. Portland does not disappoint by taking Damian Lillard, who has been on a meteoric rise up draft boards over the course of the year, in a way not entirely unlike Dion Waiters has. Lillard clearly knew this was coming, resplendent as he is in Trail Blazers colours, but I fear he may have over-accessorized the outfit:



What Lillard has that Waiters doesn't is many years of quality production. It came against weakened opposition, but is huge production against average opposition better than average production against quality opposition? Yes, if you have the prerequisite skills and physical tools to make it translate. And Lillard does. A graphic flashes up that shows Lillard and Rodney Stuckey as being the only two players drafted out of the Big Sky Conference in the last 36 years - not only is it a nice piece of trivia, it's also quite a good comparison.

In Lillard's interview with Mark Jones, Mark asks him what he learnt from speaking to Gary Payton. Lillard's response: "GP never talked to me about being successful." Gary Payton can now be found walking the streets of Seattle, again with a knife in his chest. We're selling some people out here tonight.

When Lillard is drafted, an almighty scream goes up, and the camera cuts a few seconds later to a slavering bunch of females cheering and jiggling at Lillard's success. They must hunt in packs.