Damian Lillard might be another defensively deficient, single-minded scorer, too small to play shooting guard and too self-reliant to run the point. He might be Steve Francis or Kyrie Irving or Dave Bing or any of the perceptions of Damon Stoudamire. In the darker havens of Internet alchemy, where things like Win Shares tend to play fast and loose with the laws of physics, Lillard can even start to look like Tyreke Evans or Chuck Person or Derrick Coleman. Lillard might be the new savior or the ambitious upstart who managed to seize power in the post-Roy wasteland or maybe just something in between. Approaching the end of his first calendar year as a Portland Trail Blazer, the young guard has shown evident game, but it’s his mystery and game yet to be realized that allow for such variety of perception and led to the environment of discovery that made his first season in Portland so exciting.
The fan experience of truly discovering an unknown young player has become endangered in the modern NBA. Of the 12 other lottery picks in Lillard’s 2012 class, 11 came from major conference schools with Final Four appearances in the past decade – 10 from schools with national championships in that same time period. The top two picks came from the then-reigning national champion and even the quasi-outlier from a school without a Final Four appearance, Terrence Ross, had just won the PAC-12 regular season championship at the University of Washington. All of these players entered the professional ranks as blue-chippers with long pedigrees that had been in the machine for a long time. In high school, they had Sonny Vaccaro-spawn basketball tastemakers to build their hype as they each introduced themselves via YouTube videos, corporate-sponsored AAU teams, and the high school all-star game circuit. Then in great ceremony, they selected the college to be blessed by their brief presence, where under the panoptic eye of CBS, their identities took shape in the theater of Gus Johnson’s shouting, Dick Vitale’s less coherent shouting, and the ethereal presence of Ashley Judd. By the time they even put on a Las Vegas Summer League uniform, let alone the 190-gram polyester of an NBA game uniform, they had already been cast in their characters and the only mystery that remained was how closely their success would follow the expectation of their narrative. All except Damian Lillard, that is.
The 6’3’’ guard came to Portland straight from oblivion, by way of East Oakland and the Big Sky conference. Interestingly, Lillard immediately chose to underscore the importance of those places in his mysterious narrative by picking the #0 jersey to signify Oakland, Ogden (Utah, where he was a 4-year player at Weber State), and Oregon. Yet to the observer, nothing in his background seemed to reveal any deep insights into his identity as a player. Oakland has produced greats like Jason Kidd and Gary Payton, among others (Leon Powe!), but The Town doesn’t have a pervasive basketball stereotype like that of the slick point guard from New York City who grew up on the black top or the Indiana shooter who grew up in a Norman Rockwell painting. Rather, Lillard’s hometown only suggested the sort of general toughness ascribed to any player with a forged-in-the-ghetto back story along with a likely affinity for the music of Mistah F.A.B. et al. That Lillard played four years toiling in the very un-Mistah-F.A.B.-ulous town of Ogden, Utah, after being an under recruited prep coming out of Oakland High School (alma mater of Jack London!) presumably put a proverbial chip on his shoulder, but shoulder chips can come in all shapes and sizes. At their extremities, they can create focused incentive (Jordan) or total destruction (Iverson). Lillard’s place within that spectrum, as with all players, would probably dictate his capacity for development and thus ultimately define his career, so without any other clues, his choice of jersey number carried greater importance. His first act as a Trail Blazer, while trivial in the greater happenings of the universe, appeared to indicate an underdog mentality grounded in a sense of loyalty and a humble appreciation for the external forces that had allowed the opportunity to him succeed. Of course, all kinds of romantic theories are possible when the unknown has yet to even lace up its player-edition Adizeros.
The rumors began filtering out of the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas last July. Those at Summer League, or watching NBATV, or streaming on websites of questionable legality told of the 6’3’’ rookie for Portland who looked ready for the league. Hope started to resemble reality, or at least the alternate reality where Petteri Koponen was a star and Nate Robinson has his jersey retired. Then on Halloween night, when Lillard stepped into the Rose Garden for his first meaninful game in front of his new home fans and hung 23 points and 11 assists on the Lakers, that same hope burst into true regular-season reality. Those first few weeks became the most exciting part of the season. Like Lewis and Clark beyond the Missouri River or Flynn finding the Isomorphic Algorithms in The Grid, discovery became a constant occurrence. With every crossover blow-by, explosion to the rim, or deep jumper that punished all ye who doth voyage beneath hither ball screen, text messages rippled outward towards friends and family, filled with hyperbole normally reserved for Mike Rice. Not that Lillard was doing things that hadn’t been done, or a budding superstar, or even the best player on his own team as LaMarcus kept doing that 21 and 9 thing that he does, but getting a $100 out of the ATM is a different experience than finding $20 on the ground for five straight days – dig it? The excitement and wonder of watching an unknown player take shape and find immediate success in the crucible of the Association highlighted an otherwise forgettable season of Trail Blazer basketball. Even though seasons that don’t end with the trophy named Larry O’Brien are supposed to be irrelevant, Lillard’s Rookie of the Year trophy mattered because it legitimized that collective experience as something worth remembering and something worth celebrating.
After the excitement and celebration waned, the inactivity of the off-season became, as always, a time for fans to dissect perceived flaws and dwell on festering fears. At first, the negativity centered around a lack of efficiency, that Lillard was too old to develop further, and his troubling defense. Then, two guys got smacked up in Old Town and Lillard’s name popped up in a headline with “altercation” and “entourage,” and a certain sect of Trail Blazer fans took to comments sections all too eager to dredge up names from the not so distant past like J.R. Rider, Qyntel Woods, Zach Randolph, and Z-Bo’s infamous “Hoop Family”. Never mind that the details of the incident were sketchy and that the police had cleared Lillard’s name almost immediately, fear finds what it needs to sustain and Lillard briefly became a victim of his own mystery. The lack of prior perception that made the discovery during the season so much fun now allowed scared minds to race towards whatever hyperbole they wanted to see. Yet any insight from the already largely forgotten incident reflected more onto Portland than onto Lillard, and deservedly so. There’s a special place in irony hell for self-righteous and hypocritical morality standards imposed on basketball players by a homogenous city that sees itself as the vanguard of progressivism. Altercations at 2AM outside bars are unfortunately not irregular, and plenty of good things do happen to people after midnight, just not to Cinderella.
His flaws as a player seem clear enough now: defense, playmaking, consistent jumper; so whether Lillard’s first year in Portland was the brief blessing of a fairy godmother or the foundation of a long career will depend entirely on his development, which gets back to the mysterious nature of that chip on his shoulder. In an interview with SLAM Online that ran in late May, Lillard emphasized team defensive improvement starting with his own play, but followed that with a subtle callout of his teammates in pointing to a need as a team to play with more desire and energy. As with everything else here, the meaning of the comment could vary based on the biases brought by the reader. Look for an arrogant young player questioning his teammates in the media and there it is. But contextualized with the limited identity of Lillard thus far as a tough, humble player who’s spent his basketball life climbing out of oblivion and the comment reads more like the honest opinion of a player self-reliant enough to be unafraid of outside perception, self-aware enough to acknowledge his own responsibility, and with enough humility to understand that he needs the strength of his teammates in order to collectively take the next step as a team. At least, that’s one optimistic perspective afforded by the unknown. Whatever the case though, he really does need to get better at defense.
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