Lillard Still Learning To Deal With The Business Of The NBA

Every player in the NBA knows it’s a business, and for the most part, they like it that way. Very few can make it to the NBA without a deep and sincere love of basketball, so most who are talented enough to make the league would probably continue to play for free if doing so professionally wasn’t an option, but being well compensated for partaking in an activity that you cherish is a rare and wonderful thing.

But while there are certainly perks to the business-side of the NBA, there are obviously downsides, a lament that Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard expressed via Twitter Tuesday night.

“Seems like every person I have been close with in the NBA is never kept around,” wrote Lillard. “The business side is what I hate the most!”

On Wednesday after the third practice of his USA Basketball tryout, Lillard expanded on his thoughts about seeing teammates who become friends moving on to other teams, with the most recent example being Mo Williams, who has signed as a free agent with the Timberwolves this summer after playing last season in Portland.

“I was just saying that’s the toughest part, when you develop friendships with people and then they’re gone,” said Lillard. “Ronnie Price, (Eric Maynor), JJ (Hickson), Jared (Jeffries), Mo (Williams), (Elliot Williams), it just seems like everybody that I’ve been real cool with, they end up not on the team. I was just saying that’s the part of the business that I hate.”

On one hand, it’s not as if those relationships just go away when players go their separate ways, but going from seeing a person literally every day for eight months to a few times a year, at most, is a sting that Lillard is still getting used to.

“The relationship is different,” Lillard said of friends turned former teammates. “It’s been different with every guy except (Price) because I knew him before I got to the NBA. But with Mo, I think it’s different with Mo, too. Me and Mo got like a real friendship. That’s like my big brother. I talk to Mo every day and I’m sure it will be the same. It’s just like, you don’t want to develop these friendships and get comfortable with people, get used to people being around and then they gone. It’s not like it’s two years or three years and then they’re gone, it’s like one year, gone, one year, gone.”

Lillard makes a point of noting that he’s in no way criticizing Portland’s decisions when it comes to personnel. After all, it’s inarguable that the moves executed by the front office during Lillard’s first two seasons have been overwhelmingly successful, as evidenced by a 21-win improvement during the 2013-14 seasons and advancing to the second-round of the playoffs for the first time in 14 years. But for someone as willing to open himself up to others as Lillard is, adding new talent at the expense of friendship is still bittersweet.

“For me, it’s like, I like to be friends with the people that I play with,” said Lillard. “I like to have a bond with the people that I’m playing with so we’re comfortable with each other, we’re comfortable getting on each other and taking criticism from each other. When it’s a new person each year, you’ve got to feel people out each year. Over time you get to know people, you know what I mean? The Spurs, they don’t have to deal with that. Oklahoma City, they don’t have to deal with that. For me, I just hate the fact that it is that way. As far as friendships, I hate that.”

Casey Holdahl Beat Writer
Portland Trail Blazers Follow
Casey Holdahl is the beat reporter for Trailblazers.com. A graduate of the University of Oregon's Allen School of Journalism and Communication, Holdahl founded BlazersEdge.com and worked at the Statesman Journal and OregonLive.com before joining the Trail Blazers in 2007.

http://forwardcenter.net/lillard-still-learning-to-deal-with-the-business-of-the-nba/

 

Lillard bonds with the underdogs. He'll probably have a house of stray cats and dogs after he retires.

 

I think that is the underlying story. He hasn't bonded with LMA, Nic, Wes, Rolo. As a PG, he should by now have had sex with each of them at least once.

He's not got what it takes. I say trade him for Eric Maynor.

barfo