Damian Lillard – Portland Trailblazers
Damian Lillard is currently PG for the Portland Trailblazers. The Portland Trailblazers are 9th in the Western Conference this 2020 NBA season. The Portland Trail Blazers had high hopes this season of being a top team in the west because of what happened last year in the playoffs. The Portland Trailblazers surprised everybody last year by making it all the way to the Western Conference finals where they were eventually swept by the Golden State Warriors. Damian Lillard went on a rampage during these playoffs averaging almost 30 points a game and even during one of the series against the Oklahoma City Thunder dropping a buzzer beater game winner to finish with 50 points in that game! This game sent the Oklahoma City Thunder hime for good and made them breakup their entire team. This one man Damian Lillard has been showing that he is an elite point guard in this league and deserves more respect around the NBA. Damian Lillard is currently averaging 28.9 points per game, 4.3 rebounds per game, and 7.8 assists per game while shooting 45.7% from the field. It has been a tough year for Portland due mostly to the fact that they have been dealing with injuries all year. They have not had their starting center in Joseph Nurkic since last year in the playoffs and Damian Lillard has been in and out of the lineup all year long. Even though Damian Lillard is still playing like the elite player he is this season dropping multiple 30 point games, 40 point games, and even some 50 point games that is still not enough for the Trailblazers to win many games. There season did not start well and hasn’t improved much throughout the entire season. The only time where there has maybe been a spark for success for Portland is when Damian Lillard was going on an absolute tear averaging over 30 points a game for an entire month. The Portland Trailblazers had a positive record for that month but you can’t expect Lillard to keep those specular numbers up the entire season. They tried making adjustments and even picked up an older certified legend in Carmelo Anthony but that hasn’t helped Lillard and the Trailblazers much. The main issue is defense and Damian Lillard is not known for being one of the best defenders in the league and their roster does not have many defenders across the board which has made it difficult for Portland to win games. On top of that, unlike last year this a new season with newly built teams with all star player rosters and the Trailblazers did not change their team up at all staying with Damian Lillard and CJ Mccollum as their main guys for the them. In my opinion, I think Damian Lillard is a great player and has been ever since he started playing in the NBA. His first years in the NBA he was highly disrespected not making it to all the star games, not being mention as one of the elite point guards in the league, even though he was consistently dropping over 20 points per game a season. Damian Lillard is one of the few rare players that seems to have a killer mentality in him and wants to win a championship where he is at in Portland. I respect him for not wanting to change teams and win with the circumstances he has now but in the past few years I have noticed that Portland has not given Lillard much help to work with. I’m seeing a lot of carrying by him and McCollum every single year during the playoffs and it just seems like Portland will never be good enough to get over that playoff hump and reach the NBA finals. My advice for Lillard would be to keep perfecting your game. Lillard has one of the smoothes games I have ever seen in my history of watching NBA basketball and like great offensive players like James Harden and Russell Westbrook, Damian Lillard also cannot be stopped 1v1. I know he tries as much as he can to use that to his advantage but seeing him on this subpar team is very irritating to watch. I wanna see him eventually win in this league and I think the only way for Lillard to win in this league is by putting himself in a better situation and the only way in my eyes for him to do that is to leave the Portland Trailblazers.
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