Congrats to Damian Lillard for being named the 2012-13 Rookie of the Year!

Will Barton ‏@WillTheThrillB5 - Shout out to my teammate @Dame_Lillard for winning #R0Y. You deserve it shorty.

 

Best player he played against is Chris Paul.

 

Candace Buckner ‏@blazerbanter - Following up on Terry Stotts getting around with one crutch: he recently had his left hip replaced. Right one will need to be replaced too

 

Lillard with his family -

 

The girl next to him is his girlfriend.

 

Lillard with his agents, the Goodwins.



Lillard becomes sixth GSM client to win Rookie of the Year. Last was Durant.

 

Neil Olshey says the first time he talked to Paul Allen about @Dame_Lillard was in London when he was interviewing to be GM

 

Transcript of Lillard's speech-

Damian Lillard

First of all, I want to thank God for making all of this possible for me. I want to thank my family. [Goodwin Sports employees] AG, EG, Mary, everyone there supporting.
I just want to tell everybody a little bit about myself because I kind of started from an unfortunate situation. I grew up in Oakland, California, and there's a lot that goes on there. I grew up with a lot of people that did things that I knew, from the gate, was out. I started playing football and I was kind of soft, and I admit, I was scared. My family,. they constantly picked at me about it. 'Oh, you're scared to get back out there. You don't want no part of that contact.' I just remember my brother, my cousin John, and they made me get in the grass. They were hitting me as hard as any kid could ever hit. I came back two years and I got defensive player of the year. Just the fact that they were able to put that confidence in me, that let me know a lot of things.

I fell in love with basketball after that. I believed I could do anything. There was even a point where I wanted to be a professional wrestler. God knows I was willing to do that. I really thought I could be it. The biggest thing my family taught me is to put my head into whatever I want to be and really try to pursue it. When I started to fall in love with basketball, I started to learn to work hard and I started to really want it. To learn all the different things about the game, everything that came along with it.
Little did I know I had a scholarship to Weber State coming. It was a smaller school, I always felt like I could make it to the NBA. I went there, I had a little bit of success, my coach there, he would always be on me. 'You gotta know how to respond to adversity. You come from Oakland, you know what it is to be against this wall, against this challenge.'

I got there, I had some success. I was Freshman of the Year. I was MVP of the league as a sophomore. The next year I had my mind made up. 'I'm going to come out here, have a good year, and take my family to the NBA. My mom is struggling right now, I have the chance of a lifetime to take care of her, make it to the league, all the problems are going to be solved.' Then I broke my foot.

At that point, I thought all of that stuff was coming to me and now my foot is broken. I was down about it. I got motivated all over again because I knew what was on my back, I had my family that I needed to take care of. I had all of these people that believed in me that I didn't want to let down. I really got after it. I did everything I needed to do to put myself in a position and I really came out and had a good year.

I had decided I was going to enter the draft. Then the critics came. 'Oh, he's from Weber State. He's only 6-foot-2. He's not that athletic. He didn't play against the best competition. He's 22 years old.' Anything they could think up to put an end to it, that's what they were saying. That wasn't nothing new to me. I had been up against it my whole life.

I came out and proved it up. I'm not afraid to say, I didn't care who wanted to be my friend. I went into workouts, I showed them what I knew I could do. I went to the combine, played both days, I wanted to show them that I wasn't scared. I'm not running from nobody. I got picked sixth. To a lot of people that's a huge accomplishment. I was excited but I knew what I wanted for myself.

In a press conference back at school, I told the crowd then that I wanted to be Rookie of the Year. Some people back then might have said I was crazy. Now here I am getting this award. I'm not surprised by it, that's not meant to be a cocky statement. I'm not surprised by it at all because I know I put the work in to put myself in this position.

Everything that's happened this season, I just expect from myself and I want everyone here to know that I expect more from myself because winning this award is letting me know that everything I did, has paid off. It's not about collecting some hardware, acknowledgement, the attention. It's just reminding me that everything I did to put myself in this position is paying off. I just felt like everybody should know a little bit more about me, my story, and what it took for me to get here. I can't tell you guys how much I appreciate it.
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