Damian Lillard, wrecking you This guy gets better every season. Lillard has rounded out his game on offense to the point that he is good at everything -- and realizes it. He can punish opponents in every conceivable way, from almost any spot inside the half court. He shifts entire defenses with one dribble, one shoulder fake, one glance at the rim. He knows every counter you have, and has two counters ready. He is operating with a stone-faced disdain that says, "Why are you even bothering?" Even last season, Lillard didn't quite have this combination of ferocity and multidirectional acrobatics in his off-the-bounce game: Clint Capela -- an accomplished switch defender -- until the Rockets stopped switching into that matchup. Lillard is shooting 64 percent at the rim, and earning 8.5 free throw attempts per game -- career highs. The Blazers have scored 1.45 points per possession on any trip featuring a Lillard drive, the second-best mark in the league among 72 players who have piled up at least 50 drives, per Second Spectrum data. Lillard has gone right on about half of those forays -- a bit higher than usual for a guy who leaned way left when he entered the league. The whole league watched Lillard quake when the Pelicans blitzed him in their first-round humiliation of Portland last season. Lillard clearly went to work. If he's not ready for that treatment this season, he might never be. Lillard won't win the MVP. He can't bring the two-way impact of LeBron, Anthony Davis, Kawhi Leonard, Giannis Antetokounmpo, or Kevin Durant. He is the closest thing to Stephen Curry as a one-man point guard defense-bender, though no one is really close to Curry in that regard. But it's always fun when a stealth candidate crashes the MVP conversation -- and the ballot, as Lillard did last season. If you're looking for that, look to Lillard again. He is making those of us who thought Portland might teeter look foolish -- so far. Fun subplot: If Lillard keeps this up, he's absolutely making another All-NBA team -- triggering eligibility for a supermax extension this summer. That deal would kick in during Lillard's 10th season, meaning it would inflate his salary for only that one campaign. (All players are eligible for the same maximum salary -- 35 percent of the cap -- after they have logged 10 seasons.) But earlier eligibility would accelerate Portland's decision-making timetable -- if they even consider it a decision. (They probably should.) http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/25151211/zach-lowe-10-things-like-including-damian-lillard
Harden and Westbrook aren’t elite 2 way players. Nash wasn’t a great defender. They all won MVP (Nash twice!). If Blazers win 60 games, Dame has as good a chance as anybody.
Yeah, I'm not sure why Lowe mentions defensive prowess as a requirement for MVP. Plenty of MVPs in the past have been poor defenders. Another player that comes to mind from recent memory is Rose.
Don't let Durant read this. According to him anyone who doesn't think he's an elite defender is a hater. That KD will never get the respect he deserves.
I’m losing respect for Lowe. Dude thinks OKC and Utah are locks for playoffs and the Blazers are in the same tier as Brooklyn.
I'll give Lowe credit...dude watching tons of NBA and finds nuances in middle-tier teams that don't get pub...even from their beat writers.
Pretty sure you misunderstood what he was trying to say about tiers for making the playoffs. Brooklyn has a reasonable shot of making the playoffs IN THE EAST, so he put them in that lower tier. He wasn’t trying to say that they’re as good as the Blazers or that they’d have any chance at all in the West. I agree that he’s overvalued OKC for sure, and probably Utah, and that he’s undervalued Portland.
