Exclusive Will Lillard Eventually Get Fed Up With the Blazers?

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Will Lillard Eventually Get Fed Up With the Blazers?

The Trail Blazers will welcome back Damian Lillard tonight as they face off against the Cavaliers. The Blazers have struggled to stay above .500 this season, losing on Saturday to the last-place Hawks and needing overtime to beat a woeful Bulls team last night.

Meanwhile, Lillard has been one of the few bright spots. He’s proven that he’s a bona fide NBA star, improving his defense from “miserable” to “at least adequate” on most nights, while still ranking among league leaders in points (No. 7) and assists (No. 13).

The team’s fortunes sink or swim with their point guard – a point driven home during Lillard’s recent absence when the Blazers offense has been nearly unwatchable and their efficiency stats, already below average, have plummeted to near the bottom of the league.


Many of Lillard’s teammates have played below expectations this season (e.g. Jusuf Nurkic, Noah Vonleh, Maurice Harkless, Meyers Leonard), but Lillard’s explosiveness gives Portland a puncher’s chance every night.



Despite Lillard’s play, the Blazers’ weaknesses will almost inevitably fate them to a low playoff seed and near-impossible first round matchup again this April. Ordinarily, sneaking into a lower end playoff spot thanks to a superstar’s sublime on-court efforts wouldn’t be the worst outcome, and might even be a good sign. “We can add another key player or two this summer, maybe a draft pick, and jump to a No. 5 or 6 seed next year. With some development our guys will be competing for home court advantage by the following season.” Fans of the 41-41 2007-08 Blazers remember watching this scenario playing out successfully.

Mired in Mediocrity
Unfortunately, unlike the 2008 team, the 2018 Blazers have little potential for significant improvement. Much has been written about the miserable summer of 2016, and, suffice to say, it continues to haunt the team.

General Manager Neil Olshey has committed $99 million of next season’s $101 million salary cap to Lillard, CJ McCollum, Leonard, Al-Farouq Aminu, Zach Collins, Caleb Swanigan, and salary being paid out to “stretched” players. The Blazers have $98.5 million tied up to the same group of players the next season, minus Aminu. Signing free agents to anything more than a mid-level exception will be impossible for the foreseeable future.

To make matters even worse, most of Portland’s tradeable players – Nurkic, Napier, Ed Davis, Pat Connaughton – will be free agents this summer, limiting their trade utility and making it more difficult to pull off the mythical consolidation trade. And without cap space the Blazers lack the flexibility to absorb prospects for free, a la the Harkless trade two years ago.

The Blazers did have a chance to immediately improve this summer by using one of their three first round picks to draft one of several players likely to make an immediate impact. Instead they traded two picks for one and chose long-term project Zach Collins at No. 10 and current D-Leaguer Caleb Swanigan at No. 26.

The Collins choice has become even more painful as Donovan Mitchell, selected by the Jazz at No. 13, has flourished. Ordinarily, it’s unfair to second guess draft picks, but at least one person in the Blazers’ organization had Mitchell on his radar



Collins very well might be develop into an excellent player, but with significant trades unlikely and major free agent signings impossible, the Blazers needed help immediately from the 2017 draft. Unless Collins becomes All-NBA and Mitchell levels off at a below all-star level this was a huge miss.

Ultimately the 2017 draft sealed a bitter reality for Blazers fans; unless Olshey pulls the trigger on a blockbuster McCollum trade, the current roster is more or less locked in for several years, excepting minor tinkering.

Will Lillard Get Fed Up?
Many fans will be able to live with this reality – low end playoff berths and an outside shot at winning a playoff series are de rigueur for BlazerManiacs. But there’s a bigger question in play when considering the team’s future: Will Lillard eventually get fed up with mediocrity and demand a trade?

He’ll turn 28 at the end of this season and 29 at the end of the 2018-19 season. At that point, it will be five years since “the shot” and more than four years since the Blazers were anything more than also-rans. John Wall and Kyrie Irving, the players to which Lillard is most often compared, will each have six All-Star appearances by then. Lillard will have, at most, four.

In a world where pundits regularly question Chris Paul’s all-time great status for failing to reach the conference finals, it’s not hard to imagine Lillard becoming this generation’s Baron Davis or Steve Francis.

Am I being paranoid?
As a fan, it’s hard for me not to notice these realities and conclude that the clock is ticking for Lillard. The Blazers are likely mired in mediocrity until Lillard hits 30, and his legacy likely hangs in the balance. If the team doesn’t improve very soon I worry that sacrificing his prime in a Sisyphean attempt to keep Portland on the NBA map will frustrate him to the point that he asks for a trade to pursue playoff success, similar to Kevin Garnett’s decision to leave the Timberwolves.

Nearly every player that reaches all-NBA status for the Blazers eventually leaves as the Blazers fail to achieve or maintain contendership.
And history hangs ominously over the franchise, practically daring fans to imagine Lillard’s departure. Nearly every player that reaches all-NBA status for the Blazers eventually leaves as the team fails to achieve or maintain contendership.

Maurice Lucas demanded a trade in 1979 to pursue more money and publicity, Clyde Drexler asked out in 1994 to return home to Houston, and LaMarcus Aldridge left in 2015 to also go back to Texas. Throw in Bill Walton’s acrimonious departure in 1979, and Brandon Roy’s tragically short career, and it feels almost inevitable that Portland will lose its best players.

To his credit, the media-savvy Lillard has never even hinted that he wants out of Portland, even saying that staying in Portland is more important than winning rings. But he’s also made it clear that he wants some help, attempting to recruit Carmelo Anthony this summer, and namechecking Anthony Davis, Kristaps Porzingis, and Paul George as desired teammates. This is a subtle change from the player who urged Olshey NOT to make any roster moves two years ago at the trade deadline.

So, for now, Lillard’s saying all the right things and bringing it every night on the court. But as he returns to action tonight against the Cavaliers, and lines up against Isaiah Thomas playing for a championship contending Cavs’ team, it will be hard to ignore the limitations that life with the Blazers might have for Lillard and worry that, eventually, he’ll be fed up with perpetual mediocrity

 

Didn’t care to read it because fuck blazers edge but this has been my worst fear. He’s playing in his prime and has been stuck on a mediocre team the past couple years. Sure he’s loyal and all that but man he needs help on this team. Major changes need to happen to the roster

 

Of course Dame wanted Mitchell.

Donovan wears Dame's shoes.

 

It's a reasonable question.

 

Eventually Neil's "grand plan" and "build from within" preaching will ring hollow to pretty much everyone. It already has with Allen. Heaven knows when Dame will be of the same mind as the owner. But he won't send the Vulcans out to ask questions. He'll just call his agent to send feelers out to other teams.

 

Dame is like 1 year younger than Steph. Ain't happenin'.

 

Can I give you 2 likes because both parts of your post deserve one

 

I read until the part where Meyers played below expectations......yeah, right.

 

The answer is yes. The real question is when.

 

The problem (as I see it) is that the plan after LMA left was to add a significant piece or two through free agency a couple summers ago. Neil has been trying to put other stars around Dame, and it just isn't working out.

He tried to sign Whiteside.

He tried to trade for Paul George.

He tried to trade for Melo.

We are simply not a destination for established stars. So instead, we have this weird roster that's straddling two timelines. We have Dame and CJ, who are great but not good enough to carry the team to the top without help, and are getting older. We have Nurk/Vonleh/Collins who have a lot of potential, but are not stars and are still very young. Then we have a mix of role players that could probably be rotation guys on contenders (Davis, Aminu, Turner, etc).

I actually think Melo would have worked here, and frankly I would make a trade for him if the price were right. I think PG13 would have been great. He would have been perfect on this team. It just sucks because Minnesota was able to accomplish exactly what I would have wanted to do a few years ago. They traded their star before he could leave for a young stud. They tanked and drafted a franchise player. They traded for an established star. They brought in a defensive minded coach to bring it all together.

We're still trying to make it work with a coach that was brought in to feature LMA. We're still trying to win with two small guards who don't play defense as our foundation. What's the next move? We're not going to be in the lottery unless we tank. We don't have any cap space. Our best trade chip is CJ. Nurk is a RFA. Vonleh is a RFA. This summer is really going to suck because we're going to have to commit to this group long term.

 

Of course Dame would eventually get fed up but I don't see that being anytime soon. It'll be towards the end of this or his next contract if it happens.

 

I liked everything except this. I don't think that can be said about Dame anymore.

 

Also Dame isn't small, i'm not sure why that constantly gets mentioned with him. He isn't huge but he isn't a small PG like CP3 by any means.

 

Dame isn't small for a point guard, but neither Dame or CJ are big enough to guard the bigger guards of the league, so you can't hide Dame on defense by putting him on a shooting guard. That's what my point was. Dame and CJ share similar issues on defense.