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Damian Lillard, if he can't win a ring with Giannis, who could he possibly win a ring with?

When Lillard made the 75th anniversary team, it was a mixture of "really he made it" and "well I can kind of see it, he was one of the best guards of the 2010s". The career numbers on Lillard are great. 25-6.7-4.2 but is it really meaningful? 44% from the Field, 37% from 3 in all honesty the efficiency is not that far off from another controversial player...James Harden.

Yet Lillard is viewed as second to Steph Curry in terms of being that elite score first PG of the era. His Blazers were compared to the Warriors at one point. He was viewed as a premiere guard and a special talent. He had stretches of scoring that were up there with any all time great scorer...and yet what is his legacy going to be?

His career was forever in Curry's shadow, and yet the Blazers under Lillard were almost never true contenders.

Interestingly enough, the best Blazers teams under the Lillard years actually came from when it was not Lillard's team. The 2013-2014 Blazers and the underrated 2014-2015 Blazers. These teams won 50+ games for these seasons. the 2013-2014 Blazers driven by the 2nd best offense with an average defense and then the 2014-2015 Blazers which posted that championship level top 10 offense and top 10 defense. Lillard was the second option on these teams, and while they lacked playoff success, they were without a doubt true contenders in their era.

Then LaMarcus Aldridge leaves to contend in San Antonio and the Blazers become a Damian Lillard team. With a hole to fill on offense, CJ McCollum breaks out as the Blazers co-star to Lillard. Together the two were a consistent playoff team and first round exit. Then in the 2018-2019 season the Blazers find the best roster of the CJ/Dame era, winning another 50 games and making a shocking WCF appearance where they were easily handled by a hobbled Warriors team.

The time went on and it was the "Lillard is CARRYING this team" era, and he was not carrying them like a Bradley Beal in Washington. He was carrying them like a Tracy McGrady in Orlando.

The weird thing about those late era Blazers teams is they actually had a very similar to DNA to the teams of a current starter PG in the NBA. The Blazers from 2019-2021 consistently showed a top 3 offense paired with...a bottom 3 defense. Lillard was putting up numbers but failing to get anything or any buy in on the other end of the court..and yet somehow a player by the name of Trae Young get's completely shafted for essentially having the same teams?

Then it finally happens. Lillard gets injured and CJ is shipped out, the recognition that an era is coming to a close.

The 2022-2023 Portland TrailBlazers were an awful team and Lillard managed to average a nice 32 points on that awful team. Lillard drops 71 on the worst team of the decade the 2022-2023 Stephen Silas Rockets, he's the "superstar" the "trapped top 75 player" and yet today there are talks that him and Giannis can't get it done, that he will never win a ring in Milwaukee, that Giannis wants out of the Lillard experience. What happened?

What kind of team can win with Dame Lillard at the helm? Did we collectively overlook the fact that he's a high usage guard that has never been the #1 option on his own contender? Did we forget that he has never been a playmaker but a score first guard? Did we forget that he has always been a below average defender?

And yet when Lillard wanted out of Milwaukee, the assumption was that he was going for true contention..and yet did anyone really think that Milwaukee was going to win the ring at any point during their time last year? Did it ever really feel like they were "true contenders"?

Some of us had a feeling, some us knew what the future would hold
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He's old and not the player he once was...

You think he looks funny now, imagine how his statue is going to look...

I mean Giannis has also literally stopped trying defensively the last 2 years and instead of being a DPOY caliber player on that end is now firmly in the mediocre/average defender category. THis isn't multi-MVP winner Giannis out there carrying a team with Lillard shooting them out of it or something. There's a lot of nuance and issue with the Bucks and Lillard is the least of their issues.

Bobby Portis being the single worst player in the league currently and totally unplayable. Lopez being entirely situational and unplayable vs a lot of matchups. Having no NBA caliber wings. And the rest of the bench being likely the worst in the entire NBA with no other options are some serious issues.

mcfly1204 wrote:You think he looks funny now, imagine how his statue is going to look...

It'll probably look like this emoji, since "Bye bye OKC" is his most iconic moment

if steph was given the teams dame had in portland he wouldnt have ever made it past the 2nd round

Dame trade is under-rated because people see the Bucks are worse and cannot connect 1 & 2 and attribute it to the Dame trade.

2019 Bucks: 60 wins, +8.5 net rating (both led league)
2020 Bucks: 63 eqv wins (covid adjust), +9.5 net rating (both led league)

When the Bucks acquired Jrue, they were a youngish team, that was elite on both ends, and dominating competition. Jrue was there for 3 seasons, and in that time the team won a title his first year, but then only won 1-playoff series the next two years combined.

When the Bucks acquired Dame, they were coming off a season where their net rating was only +3.5 (still a 58 win team). They lost in the first round.

Jrue was there for three playoffs, and Jrue sucked in all three years. He had a TS% of 48/46/49% across three playoffs,which is outragously unacceptable for a 25% usage rate player. Those are late career Westbrook efficiency metrics without the assists or rim pressure.

Dame put up a 66% TS and an OPM of 12.2. His offensive production was considerably better than Jrue could ever be capable of.



The reason the Bucks suck is that the entire team is old and injured.

bovice wrote:if steph was given the teams dame had in portland he wouldnt have ever made it past the 2nd round

Interesting fantasy you have going there. Kind of pricks the bubble though knowing Lillard had at least 5 playoffs games where his Trail Blazers led the Warriors by double digits at some point—most by 17 or more—but he still ended up losing all of them.

WarriorGM wrote:

bovice wrote:if steph was given the teams dame had in portland he wouldnt have ever made it past the 2nd round

Interesting fantasy you have going there. Kind of pricks the bubble though knowing Lillard had at least 5 playoffs games where his Trail Blazers led the Warriors by double digits at some point—most by 17 or more—but he still ended up losing all of them.

"Interesting fantasy you have going there" lmao. cause being up 17 in a game means anything. you know a player and team's effort varies throughout the game, right? a team's performance throughout 2 quarters doesn't mean much, it's odd that you put so much significance into that. what an odd way to analyze basketball.

defense wins championships, right? so name a solid defender dame had around him in his prime and i can name 6 that steph had that's better than him. you're getting butt hurt because u think im saying steph sucks or something. i'm just pointing out that talent matters and dame didn't have the talent steph did around him. relax.

Never should have been on the top-75 team.

Jokic had accomplished far more than he had. Pau. Dwight. All should have been on over dame and his fancy counting stats.

I don’t think history is going to be kind to him.

bovice wrote:if steph was given the teams dame had in portland he wouldnt have ever made it past the 2nd round

just stop it, you are comparing a borderline top 10 player of all time to a top 100 player of all time.....why would not you do that to any all time great? like if you give Vince Carter Jordan's HOF teammates he would have surely won 6 rings!

I don't think it's his fault that management hired a coach who shouldn't be running a JV team. The Bucks were rolling under Bud and rolling under Griffin but for whatever reason they both got canned so management could brush shoulders with Doc **** Rivers.

Well at least he made a Conference Finals.

cpower wrote:

bovice wrote:if steph was given the teams dame had in portland he wouldnt have ever made it past the 2nd round

just stop it, you are comparing a borderline top 10 player of all time to a top 100 player of all time.....why would not you do that to any all time great? like if you give Vince Carter Jordan's HOF teammates he would have surely won 6 rings!

OP is the one comparing Steph to Lillard dummy

maybe dame is just not a bright bulb..

one's a pg/sg one's a pf/c they don't even play the same roles. the guard runs the show

i'm taking a chance and saying something novel,,,,,maybe doc is the prob
nick saban said a bad coach affects a team more than anything else

I don't hate him but his contract was awful we knew it at the time it wasn't going to age well. It's one thing to go out and sign him but to give up assets to that contract I dunno it's nuts to me.

To me that is the major difference because as an example we all know Georges contract isn't going to age well either but the difference is he signed. We got to keep assets. If Mil still had those picks it would be so much easier to build around Dame and Giannis to fix some of the teams issues.

Roger Murdock wrote:Dame trade is under-rated because people see the Bucks are worse and cannot connect 1 & 2 and attribute it to the Dame trade.

2019 Bucks: 60 wins, +8.5 net rating (both led league)
2020 Bucks: 63 eqv wins (covid adjust), +9.5 net rating (both led league)

When the Bucks acquired Jrue, they were a youngish team, that was elite on both ends, and dominating competition. Jrue was there for 3 seasons, and in that time the team won a title his first year, but then only won 1-playoff series the next two years combined.

When the Bucks acquired Dame, they were coming off a season where their net rating was only +3.5 (still a 58 win team). They lost in the first round.

Jrue was there for three playoffs, and Jrue sucked in all three years. He had a TS% of 48/46/49% across three playoffs,which is outragously unacceptable for a 25% usage rate player. Those are late career Westbrook efficiency metrics without the assists or rim pressure.

Dame put up a 66% TS and an OPM of 12.2. His offensive production was considerably better than Jrue could ever be capable of.



The reason the Bucks suck is that the entire team is old and injured.

Yeah Dame isn't I think the player he was, but he's still probably at worst a top 25 player, maybe top 20.

But Dame is getting like 29/7 on 60-something true shooting percentage right now. Problem is Middleton is injured and the squad isn't that good, and Giannis was injured last year, as was Dame.

Dame made a conference finals already. He's had some incredible playoff performances. But he's 34 now and he's a 6'2" guard. Always been a bad defender. but it's not really on him. Giannis looks funny in the light, too.

Dame isn't the problem with this team.

Was very comfortable as the big fish in a small pond in Portland.

Under the bright lights...not so much.

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