Damian Lillard struggles big time right now

[Hangtime84]

Dame looking cooked earlier than expected

Been declining each year for sometime

[GrindCityHustle]

They got Dame way too late. He is like an old Clyde Drexler now or something lol

[Impuniti]

NBA is the only sport that gives out the highest contract to every top player to earn it until mid to late 30s. The next few seasons we are going be seeing a lot of legendary bad contracts.

Apparently the father time concept has not been explained to professionals that make millions assembling teams. A concept my 10 year old cousin knows.

[JN61]

Hadn't realised he has been this bad this season. Being total black hole on the defense is even bigger issue when you only produce on borderline all-star level.

[Buckeye-NBAFan]

Jrue Holiday - 2.1 3PM on 44% shooting
Dame - 2.9 3PM on 34% shooting

Holiday's issue has never been the regular season

It's been not being able to hit the broadside of a barn in the postseason

He hasn't proven otherwise yet

[FreeBird23]

An expensive overrated loser.
Good luck Giannis.

[KembaWalker]

Bucks didn’t bring in Lillard to win games in February. His only job is to stay healthy and get some cardio, and ramp it up when it matters

[Sign5]

If you think keeping JJJ and Jovic is the path to a championship..then sure...but they arent... having a couple of young role players is better than a perennial all star?

The title is about Dame's struggles, fact of the matter is his numbers are down across the board. Which is exactly why I wasn't huge on the trade in the first place. Dame is declining and will likely be one of the worst contract in the league. No thanks.

its hard to imagine a hot take looking worse as fast as this one did

Lol uh huh

[CharityStripe34]

Dame also admittedly didn't do any off-season workouts while waiting for a trade. So he came into the season out of shape, going through a divorce, traded to a new team and city, etc. Compile that with the coaching change mid-season. I'll reserve judgement for post-ASB in the ramp up to the playoffs.

[kingr]

I'm still trying to defend him but all these 14-16point games and terrible shooting is concerning. I wouldn't expect such a drop off in skill from someone who scored 70+ less than 12 months ago.

[IceColdCubano]

Dame also admittedly didn't do any off-season workouts while waiting for a trade. So he came into the season out of shape, going through a divorce, traded to a new team and city, etc. Compile that with the coaching change mid-season. I'll reserve judgement for post-ASB in the ramp up to the playoffs.

A wise man once said, "moving the goal post is to delay the inevitable answer, where pain increases as time ticks ever so farther into accepting the truth".

[Godymas]

making a move for Lillard AFTER replacing your long time championship coach of Mike Budenholzer with a 1st timer was a big oof by the FO

You either do one or the other, you can't do both and expect it to work. Giannis might actually ask out at some point if he's not closer to getting a championship by the deadline next year

[IceColdCubano]

I'm still trying to defend him but all these 14-16point games and terrible shooting is concerning. I wouldn't expect such a drop off in skill from someone who scored 70+ less than 12 months ago.

Kobe could still score a 50 burger in his last year prior to retiring in the right circumstance, doesn't mean he can go out and average 30+ppg during the season. Father time is undefeated, if you look at Lillard's last 4 years there's a clear downward transition in statistics on efficiency, and production, last year was an outlier in that downward transition as he aged. So are we to take that last years Lillard is the norm or an aberration factoring the whole history of his statistics heading downward which now correlates to this years overall production.

The only other thing that could be factored here outside of coaching issues(he is surrounded by the best team he has ever had, the amount of open shots he gets vs Portland Lillard should promote more efficiency), being out of shape issues(people say this but there's videos of him online working out on vacation everywhere he went), is that perhaps he doesn't care as much and was traded to a place he never wanted to be in.

[GiannisAnte34]

Dame also admittedly didn't do any off-season workouts while waiting for a trade. So he came into the season out of shape, going through a divorce, traded to a new team and city, etc. Compile that with the coaching change mid-season. I'll reserve judgement for post-ASB in the ramp up to the playoffs.

A wise man once said, "moving the goal post is to delay the inevitable answer, where pain increases as time ticks ever so farther into accepting the truth".

The Heat limped in and barely escaped the play-in before they went beast mode in the playoffs last year... this is cap

[IceColdCubano]

Dame also admittedly didn't do any off-season workouts while waiting for a trade. So he came into the season out of shape, going through a divorce, traded to a new team and city, etc. Compile that with the coaching change mid-season. I'll reserve judgement for post-ASB in the ramp up to the playoffs.

A wise man once said, "moving the goal post is to delay the inevitable answer, where pain increases as time ticks ever so farther into accepting the truth".

The Heat limped in and barely escaped the play-in before they went beast mode in the playoffs last year... this is cap

while true, Miami has a history of going into another gear, and coaching staff doing some really great schemes for playoff matchups specifically. They tend to do a lot of trial and error during the season and playing below their level during the regular season. If you feel that this applies to this Milwaukee team and coaching staff than ok, I will give you the Milwaukee fan the benefit of a doubt as you watch your team way more than I do.

[JDR720]

Jrue Holiday - 2.1 3PM on 44% shooting
Dame - 2.9 3PM on 34% shooting

That's not far from his career average of 37%. Dame has range, but he's never been a very high % shooter.

This season has lessened his volume though because he was to share the ball, which he isn't used to doing.

[ConSarnit]

Dame also admittedly didn't do any off-season workouts while waiting for a trade. So he came into the season out of shape, going through a divorce, traded to a new team and city, etc. Compile that with the coaching change mid-season. I'll reserve judgement for post-ASB in the ramp up to the playoffs.

I don't think Dame is cooked by any means (I think he might be the type of player who can flip a switch in the playoffs) but the issue with the "needs time to adjust" argument is:

Dame over first 50 games of the season:

First 25 games: 26/7/4 on 44/37/91 shooting

Last 25 games: 23/6.5/4 on 41/31/93 shooting

If he needed the first third of the season to get back into shape/acclimatize why is he playing worse now than he did at the start of the season? Shouldn't he be getting better as the season goes on?

[IceColdCubano]

Jrue Holiday - 2.1 3PM on 44% shooting
Dame - 2.9 3PM on 34% shooting

That's not far from his career average of 37%. Dame has range, but he's never been a very high % shooter.

This season has lessened his volume though because he was to share the ball, which he isn't used to doing.

I did a deep dive on Lillard analytics when the whole hoopla thing happened to see how he would fit in Miami Heat with our team.

Here's what I found, the grand majority of great 3P shooters in the league, the higher the amount of volume the worse the percentage got some players where more substantial than others. The inverse of that on players that were set shooters, or corner shooters their percent would increase on lower volume. Lillard fell into a different category similar to Step Curry that he actually decreased his percentages with lower volume, and increased his efficiency on higher volume total different to normal shooters. There are other guys that fall within that margin, its due to the fact that they are rythm players that require a certain amount of shooting in order to get into a kill streak of hitting numerous consecutive difficult shots.

If you want to see Lillard hit more shots, and be more efficient, he needs to shot more and have a bigger usage rate, his numbers are down 9-12% across the board, on everything which correlates to him having a 12% drop in usage rate by ratio vs minutes played.

[GiannisAnte34]

Dame also admittedly didn't do any off-season workouts while waiting for a trade. So he came into the season out of shape, going through a divorce, traded to a new team and city, etc. Compile that with the coaching change mid-season. I'll reserve judgement for post-ASB in the ramp up to the playoffs.

I don't think Dame is cooked by any means (I think he might be the type of player who can flip a switch in the playoffs) but the issue with the "needs time to adjust" argument is:

Dame over first 50 games of the season:

First 25 games: 26/7/4 on 44/37/91 shooting

Last 25 games: 23/6.5/4 on 41/31/93 shooting

If he needed the first third of the season to get back into shape/acclimatize why is he playing worse now than he did at the start of the season? Shouldn't he be getting better as the season goes on?

First 25 games was much softer schedule

[GiannisAnte34]

A wise man once said, "moving the goal post is to delay the inevitable answer, where pain increases as time ticks ever so farther into accepting the truth".

The Heat limped in and barely escaped the play-in before they went beast mode in the playoffs last year... this is cap

while true, Miami has a history of going into another gear, and coaching staff doing some really great schemes for playoff matchups specifically. They tend to do a lot of trial and error during the season and playing below their level during the regular season. If you feel that this applies to this Milwaukee team and coaching staff than ok, I will give you the Milwaukee fan the benefit of a doubt as you watch your team way more than I do.

Isn't that literally moving the goal post?