Lillard is the face of the franchise but more than that he represents a player commitment to the local fan base. I can't stress how important that is. When Lamarcus left, it seriously fucked any chance of building a player core around an accepted All Star. We would essentially have become a halfway house for developing players if Dame hadn't committed right away. We owe him for that. The league doesn't care about Portland. It's obvious we aren't part of the agenda as our best players are denied even a chance at All Star voting. The inability to attract free agents is killing this franchise. Dame at least it gives a face and an identity. We would be fucked otherwise!
Ricky Rubio has been very loyal to Minnesota, too. And if you want to talk loyalty to Portland, Lillard has a ways to go to beat Steve Blake. Poor guy came back, what, three times?
If I really believed that were true then I would check out of the league until their contracts expired. Show me a team that had two equally bad defenders at the guard spots and even sniffed at a title. If they are both untouchable then get used to the one-and-done years. At least we will get a lot of 14th draft picks. Yeah.
Jokic is a lot more valuable than Lillard and I like Lillard. Jokic played at a very high level last year too--I said at the end of last year that Jokic, by advanced numbers, looked to be maybe a tick behind Karl-Anthony Towns and Kristaps Porzingas in terms of rookie play. This year, he's taken a step backwards defensively but a big step forward offensively and is a legitimate star. Lillard has been a star longer, but Jokic is a younger, better talent.
Rubio isn't in Adidas commercials or as good a player as Dame is. Dame has a brand identity that is linked with PDX. Every time I tell someone from around the world where I'm from, they say, "Oh. Where Damian Lillard plays?" People in Eastern Europe are Blazer fans solely because of Sabonis. That's how you beat every other single GM telling free agents Portland sucks ass. USC and UCLA do that every year to local recruits about Eugene. You show athletes it doesn't matter where you play because the exposure is the same. That's why Dame is so important.
Can we please stop with all the negative Lillard talk... the dude has embraced the city of Portland like no other player in recent memory... the team is having a down year but he has proven himself and the team will bounce back next year... he deserves more respect than this
This was discussed in another thread a month or so ago, and it's no less true now. It's not difficult to list 10 PG's who have arguably played as well or better this season. Not saying that he's definitely not a top 10 PG, but it's not necessarily a slam dunk that he is.
I find this line of thinking to be a little absurd. Nobody was saying he was even outside top 5 last summer. So he is magically not the same player six months later? Shit, why not go minute by minute? This minute he's top 3, but next minute he'll miss a shot so he's maybe..... 20th best in the league? And then the next minute he hits a deep three and he's back in the top 5. I just can't even keep track!
He doesn't look like the same player from 6 months ago, so yeah... "magically" he isn't. He's a big boy, he can handle criticism.
By the same token, if he's a top-five point guard one year, surely he must be for the next fifty years? Exaggerations are silly. A lot of point guards are playing well. Also, Lillard's reputation, nationally and on this board, was higher when the team was doing well (because he was assumed to be infused with leader-y winner-sauce) and is lower, nationally and on this board, when the team is doing badly (because he's the captain of a sinking ship). You could have argued his standing last year, too, but no one would have wanted to with good feelings flowing. One thing that Lillard boosters need to recognize is that Lillard is less valuable than his raw PPG. Defense is a big deal and he's bad at it. That saps a lot of value. And something Lillard critics should recognize is that Lillard's ability to be even this productive, offensively, despite not having a high-level team around him to take defensive pressure off is a rare and valuable skill. Lillard is obviously a star point guard, but he plays in an era with an unprecedented number of star point guards. And the situation isn't helped by non-traditional players playing the point guard role and excelling at it (Harden, Antetokounmpo). John Wall is playing better this year than last year. Mike Conley is playing better this year than last year. Lowry is playing better this year than last year. Isiah Thomas is playing...much, much better this year than last year. Just a tough era to rank highly as a point guard. Lillard is certainly in the mix, but definitely does not clearly shoot ahead of everyone.
I think it should be on the table if you land in the top-3 and have a chance to draft one of the big three PGs in the draft. Rudy Gobert, anyone?
The position is so flooded with great talent and there is a huge "the grass is greener" mentality when the team isn't doing very well. If you want to look at the media side of it, we are a small market team so the media likes to ignore us unless we are overachieving, if Lillard was on NY/LA/Texas Team he would be viewed quiet differently by the media. Edit- Also people weren't saying these things the first 20 games of the season as well. Its pretty easy to see that Lillard hasn't been right on the court since he came back from his injury. I think its effecting him a lot more then its let on. pre injury 45% from the field and 36% from 3. Post injury 41% from the field and 33% from 3. Could just be a slump but watching the games he does not seem to be 100%, especially on D. Where he used to fight through screens now and then he is almost always going around them and he is very slow footed when having to move change directions. Heck even on offense he can't shake his man that effectively at the moment.
