By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
Shortly after being ruled out for the remainder of the 2021-22 NBA season, Damian Lillard talked to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports about coming back from abdominal surgery he underwent in January and his future at the Portland Trail Blazers.
“That’s the only thing I care about, honestly,” he replied to winning a championship in Portland still being his desire, “It seems like after I announced that I was having surgery, people were like, ‘Oh, he’s 31 and having this done.’ Man, 31 is not old. They act like you’re old when we have guys around the league older than me that are still playing at a high level. Also, my game is not based on me playing above the rim. I’m a sniper. I shoot. I got a good step. I can think the game. I can manipulate the game, and I know how to play. My game will age well, and I don’t have a history of injuries. And the one that I just had is not a bad injury to have. I’m going to come back and be fine. Like I said, my best is yet to come. And the only things that I play for at this point is I want to be the MVP of the league and I want to win the championship. And once I do those things, I feel great about the investment that I made to this game over my whole life. If I accomplish those two things, I’m walking away feeling like I literally got the most out of myself as an athlete.”
Going through his tenth season in the NBA and as a member of the Blazers, he averaged 24.0 points, 7.3 assists, and 4.1 rebounds per contest over 29 appearances. Standing 27-46, his side has to cover a four-game gap with nine games left in the Regular Season schedule to squeeze in the Play-In zone of the Western Conference. Dropping 11 of the 13 last games makes a late push look unlikely.
Despite recent moves, including trading away CJ McCollum, he believes the Blazers are in a good position to strengthen the squad, moving toward meeting the goal of winning an NBA championship.
“We’ve opened up money, we got picks, we got a $22 million trade exception, we got a $6 million trade exception, we got the full mid-level, we got the bi-annual,” pointed out Lillard, “We have an opportunity, and we got flexibility. There are guys we can bring in that can make us a team that can compete for a championship, but we have to execute that.”
After four years at Weber State, the Blazers selected him with the sixth overall pick of the 2012 draft. Ten years later, the Oakland-born point guard, 6-time All-Star and 4-time All-NBA second team member, among other individual accolades, hopes to achieve his remaining goals by becoming the MVP and leading the Blazers to a championship.
Photo Credit: Getty Images