{"id":400113,"date":"2026-11-13T21:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-11-13T20:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/?p=400113"},"modified":"2026-11-15T16:25:55","modified_gmt":"2026-11-15T16:25:55","slug":"the-team-damian-lillard-dreamed-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/the-team-damian-lillard-dreamed-of\/","title":{"rendered":"The team Damian Lillard dreamed of"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI truly believe the day will come when I put on a Blazers uniform again. And hopefully by then I&#8217;ll have been forgiven for breaking your hearts along with my own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With love. The letter 0\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right wp-block-paragraph\"><em><strong>Damian Lillard in his farewell letter to Portland, 2023<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some of the right relationships happen at less-than-ideal moments. For a long time, the terms of Damian Lillard&#8217;s relationship with Portland and the Trail Blazers were, up to a point, secondary. He valued good intentions more than results. For arguably the most important player in franchise history, with all due respect to Bill Walton, it was enough to feel the trust the front office showed him through contract extensions without penny-pinching, and through the moves made in the offices year after year with the aim of building the best possible team around him.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When LaMarcus Aldridge decided to seek his fortune elsewhere in 2015, the Blazers didn&#8217;t hesitate to put their faith in Lillard, also letting Nic Batum go in order to build a new future. Those four years, which culminated in the 2019 Western Conference finals, were the honeymoon. It was fuelled by the unlikely stories of Jusuf Nurkic and CJ McCollum. Role players who felt like part of the family because that was how Lillard treated every player who walked through the locker room door.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Under normal circumstances, falling at the door of the Finals against one of the best teams in history, if not the best, shouldn&#8217;t lead to hasty conclusions. But there was something in the superiority shown (more in the series as a whole than in each individual game) by a Warriors side who arrived without Kevin Durant that, in hindsight, is hard to ignore as the seed of what would bring the project down.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These problems boil down to the fact that none of the players around Dame complemented him perfectly. Lillard has always been a limited ball handler when it comes to playmaking. His seasons with the most assists fed mainly off the space his teammates were given by the brutal threat of his shot as soon as he crossed halfcourt, and off undeniable passing talent. Not so much off a gifted reading of two-on-two situations or complex defensive coverages.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">CJ McCollum eased those creative problems by giving him support as a ball handler and pick-and-roll operator. His shortcomings, however, stacked on top of Lillard&#8217;s own: a small defender with a frame too slight to dance with certain matchups once teams put a target on him in the playoffs. As evidence, the athletic bullying both received from Jrue Holiday in 2018 and from Klay Thompson and Golden State&#8217;s battery of defenders in 2019.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"position:relative; width:100%; height:0px; padding-bottom:56.250%\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allow=\"fullscreen\" allowfullscreen height=\"100%\" src=\"https:\/\/streamable.com\/e\/oypxox?\" width=\"100%\" style=\"border:none; width:100%; height:100%; position:absolute; left:0px; top:0px; overflow:hidden;\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jusuf Nurkic was a good centre whom injuries degraded far too early into a role that was too limited, simply because of court coverage. At one time one of the best defensive anchors in the NBA, a superb screen-setter and tidy passer, he needed too much involvement on offence for a level of production well short of the efficiency expected from a five.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In other words, the two main talents alongside Lillard were also players with marked weaknesses not unlike Dame&#8217;s own. The cracks were crying out for a wing who could cover the whole spectrum of the game from a supporting role. And it was in that search that the project ultimately perished.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Casting on the wing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Al-Farouq Aminu fell short on offence and his greatest virtue was his size. Trevor Ariza arrived late in his career and Carmelo Anthony wasn&#8217;t what the team needed, however motivated he was on landing in Portland. Robert Covington was one of the best defenders in the league, though above all he was a system defender: never out of position, good at weak-side help, rather than the attack dog that Dame and CJ probably needed. He was also an increasingly one-dimensional player on offence at a time when the NBA was already demanding more than waiting with your feet behind the three-point line.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">53 wins, then 35 including the bubble, 42 in a shortened schedule and one of the greatest individual performances in playoff history, only to not even win a game in Denver. And Lillard&#8217;s body said enough, making the additions of Josh Hart and Norman Powell futile and starting the project&#8217;s drift. One last attempt with Jerami Grant made it clear it was no longer a question of fit, but of the viability of a project tired of falling short. So much so that the man who had always sworn sincere loyalty began to be seduced by what lay elsewhere.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Honest to the last, Lillard walked into the offices run by Joe Cronin to say he wanted out, with Miami as his destination. By the time he saw it wasn&#8217;t going to happen because the Blazers couldn&#8217;t reach an agreement with Pat Riley, Dame wanted to backtrack and found that at home they had already moved on.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On 27 September 2023, with training camps already under way, Damian Lillard was traded in a three-team deal that landed him in Milwaukee and brought the Blazers 3 first-round picks, Deandre Ayton and, funny how fate works, Toumani Camara.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it&#8217;s funny because, two years on, with Lillard returning humbled after a real divorce that kept him from his family and a figurative one that treated him as a mere financial asset whose payment could be put off, by the time he got back to Portland young Camara had become exactly the kind of player Dame would have killed for years earlier.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Damian Lillard: &#8220;It wouldn&#8217;t be possible if I hadn&#8217;t left&#8221;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These two years in Oregon have been used to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spotrac.com\/nba\/portland-trail-blazers\/yearly\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">clean up the books<\/a> and enjoy a couple of strokes of luck. The biggest was betting on an untapped talent like Deni Avdija, who is secured at a bargain price ($13m this season, $11.8m next) for at least one more year. Also having an already game-changing centre on a rookie contract and signing one of the best 3&amp;D players on the planet for 11% of the salary cap. All while keeping at least one first-round pick intact from now until 2033.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It wouldn&#8217;t have been possible with Lillard, and he knows it himself. \u201cThe team I&#8217;m on now couldn&#8217;t have been built if I had never left,\u201d he told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/sports\/nba\/damian-lillard-portland-trail-blazers-nba-season-rcna605770\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\"><em>NBC News<\/em><\/a><em>. <\/em>\u201cWe would still be trying to find ways to get players and avoid the rebuild, the player development and the accumulation of assets. All of that needed me to go\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Having a backbone resting on three players who take up barely 23% of the cap, when any superstar in the league (with four years of experience) earns between 25% and 35%, is what allows them to make bets that might sound out of place to others but that are controlled risks for the Blazers.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/2026-10-08T040204Z_886328257_MT1USATODAY30026418_RTRMADP_3_NBA-PRESEASON-GOLDEN-STATE-WARRIORS-AT-PORTLAND-TRAIL-BLAZERS.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-437078\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Keeping Holiday at 34 years old and earning more than $30m seemed like sacrilege, and last year he ended up being the captain general who laid the foundations of a competitive team. Waiving Deandre Ayton while having to pay him $23m that counted against the cap was a necessary move so as not to spoil the rest of the project. Going after Ja Morant after all his off-court problems and injuries was something very few were willing to undertake, and now it looks like not such a crazy decision. Bringing back Damian Lillard, injured with an Achilles tear, for little more than a veteran minimum looked like not much more than a charitable gesture, and now they have a player of unmatched symbolic weight and current on-court value.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Setting aside the ethically dubious decisions Tom Dundon has made with his employees and the standoff he has with the city of Portland and the state of Oregon over the construction of a new arena or the remodelling of the Moda Center, the work of Joe Cronin is beyond reproach.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The result of all this is that Damian Lillard has, for the first time in his career in Portland, a group that not only complements him perfectly in this penultimate stretch of his career, but one he would have raved about in his first spell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Where there&#8217;s room for three, there&#8217;s room for four<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bringing together four ball handlers like Lillard, Morant, Avdija and Holiday was hard to structure on paper. On the court, it has been enough for Morant to show discipline in offering alternatives that go beyond having the ball (in the few games he played before getting injured) to discover that they are all players capable of surviving without the game constantly running through them. Jrue has already shown himself to be an automaton under Mazzulla&#8217;s orders, and Lillard doesn&#8217;t mind having stretches of play in which he works off the ball from three to give the rest space.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At this point in his career, it is Avdija who has to start with the most creation responsibility, even though he is also taking 3.2 catch-and-shoot threes per game, <em>catch-and-shoot <\/em>shooting above 37%. The Israeli still has the explosiveness and strength the rest have lost for one reason or another and can spend 30 minutes hammering the opposition&#8217;s paint (second-most drives in the league), drawing fouls (4th-most free throws attempted) and igniting the transition game (5.5 points per game generated in the open court). He is also the best handler of the pick-and-roll in terms of passing to Donovan Clingan or Robert Williams III (77th percentile as a ball handler in the two-man game).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Defensively, these Blazers are more than well armed. Clingan for size and reading of the game, Williams for vertical and horizontal coverage, Holiday for defensive playmaking and composure, Avdija (who has dipped with his offensive workload) is an above-average defender, Sidy Sissoko for energy and grit, Camara\u2026 Camara is quite simply one of the best defensive spearheads on the planet.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Right now the Blazers have the 11th-best defence in the league and a relative defensive rating 0.9 points better than average. Dame has only played alongside a top-10 defence that was above the league average in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/teams\/POR\/2015.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">2015 <\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/teams\/POR\/2018.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">2018<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thanks to this defensive support, and to an offence that is multiplied <em>by <\/em>rather than dependent <em>on <\/em>his presence, Damian Lillard is able to choose his moments in games to have scoring explosions like the <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/nbamaniacs\/status\/2120438684692459738?a=ff07UR2NZ-l4k60kvWU&amp;s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">third quarter against OKC last Wednesday<\/a> (13 points on 5-of-6 shooting and 3-of-4 from three) or showing up in Dame Time as he did against the Lakers. And that is with his shooting (33% from three) still more than capable of improving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"es\" dir=\"ltr\">Los Blazers de los 1001 bases maridan mejor y m\u00e1s r\u00e1pido de lo esperado. Ja Morant, Deni Avdija y Damian Lillard han encontrado su huequito en el clutch para acabar sumando la victoria en LA <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/B7gbQ3Y1P5\">pic.twitter.com\/B7gbQ3Y1P5<\/a><\/p>&mdash; nbamaniacs (@nbamaniacs) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/nbamaniacs\/status\/2115368897457095037?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 28, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a consequence of all these causes, in a West that is tough again, the Trail Blazers are sitting at 8-3 despite having faced the Lakers and Thunder twice, the Spurs and the Nuggets; they have the eighth-best point differential in the league and, above all, they have the chance to feel at spiritual and sporting peace with the most representative figure of the franchise&#8217;s recent (and not so recent) history. However much they will never stop being in his debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>(Cover photo by Troy Wayrynen-Imagn Images)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Had Damian Lillard been given the choice back then, he would have dreamed of putting together a roster like the one he has today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":400114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[76,67],"class_list":["post-400113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-damian-lillard","tag-portland-trail-blazers","no-featured-image-padding","resize-featured-image"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/2026-11-08T000934Z_2127962995_MT1USATODAY30310069_RTRMADP_3_NBA-SAN-ANTONIO-SPURS-AT-PORTLAND-TRAIL-BLAZERS.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Kiera Gardner","author_link":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/author\/kiera\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":400178,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400113\/revisions\/400178"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}