I am convinced you could not ask for a better leader for a franchise. Kid is gold. http://portlandtribune.com/pt/254-s...177808-damian-lillard-the-face-of-the-blazers
Tribune: We’re near the end of the regular season and you’re in the top 10 in the NBA in minutes played at about 36 a game. How’s your health at this point? Lillard: I feel good. Since I’ve been in the league, I’ve always felt a little tired at the end of the season. If I’m not tired at this point, then I’ve not giving the team my all. With the responsibility — 25 points a game, seven assists, four rebounds, guarding the other team’s point guard — I’m not taking the night off. I’ve taken that responsibility of giving 110 percent to the team. When you do that, you get tired. But I feel fine. I do enough things to allow myself to play every game. I go home and go to sleep after games. There are days I take naps. I come to the training facility and get into the cold tub and the steam room. I do massages. I take care of myself. I don’t do all those things that would hang my team out to dry. I do the necessary things so I can be out there every night. That’s what my coaches and teammates depend on me to do.
This quote: I bet this coach feels like a jackass now. Very cool article, goes into detail about a lot of the slights he felt growing up. We always knew he felt overlooked as a player, we didn't know a lot of specifics till now.
I felt similarly about Roy during his first season or two, but it didn't take long to see that he was just "talking the talk" without "walking the walk". Sometimes I fear that we're being fooled again by another media-savvy player. But every time I read an interview with him it erases those fears. He's genuine. He's the real deal.
I think we would have seen it by now with Lillard. Lillard is a fantastic leader and great ambassador for our franchise. Thats one thing I will never question about Lillard
He wears fatigue as though its a badge of honor. Wish he viewed being in a position to perform his best in the playoff as giving it his all.
You know, it really would be a pretty amazing experiment. Have a completely healthy superstar like Dame spend 10 days doing nothing but preparing to perform in the postseason. Don't play either of the final two games, just spend time in a hyperbaric chamber, in a hot tub, getting therapeutic massages, doing short workouts, yoga--anything the training staff can come up with to refresh, rejuvenate, and revitalize, and see if it actually pays dividends in the playoffs. Never happen, but I'd love to see some team try something like that.
Yeah I don't really blame him for it; Stotts needs to be the one forcing him to go easy or reduce his minutes here and there. Dame hasn't been .500 from the field in 13 consecutive games. He's also getting torched on defense. It's amazing our team is playing as well as it is.
So sort of what he did on the 9 off days at the all-star break? We saw what happened the next 11 games; the most dominant Blazer stretch since Drexler.
And yet we slagged on LaMarcus for complaining about how tired he was all the time. Let's all coordinate which hand we'll clutch our pearls with.
I bet we could get Dame to play 24 minutes or less in the two remaining games... subtract ASG festivities, and it comes out even.
Interesting. That being said, we don't play for 2 more days (April 9th @home), then finish the season 4 days later (April 13th @home), and the playoffs don't start for 3 days after that (April 16th @road). Rest is here, now. (we've played 80, some other teams have only played 77 or 78 - we're ahead of the game.) Last 2 games of season are at home, so after next game he'll have 1 game in 7 days and he'll be sleeping at home each night - he should be rested enough.
