Damian Lillard – Portland Trail Blazers

One of the biggest storylines of the first few weeks of the season revolved around Damian Lillard. Through the Blazers’ first five games, Lillard was only averaging 19.2 points, 3.4 rebounds, 7.6 assists and was shooting just 37.1% from the floor, 26.2% from three-point range.

These numbers are not terrible for an ordinary player in the league, but Dame is no ordinary player.

Entering the season, there was a lot of chatter about if this would be Damian Lillard’s last year in Portland and early on, his willingness to play with this team was in question. 

Since the Blazers’ 3-5 start, they have won 5 of their last 6 games and have worked their way back to 10-8 on the year thanks to Lillard. In the Blazers’ last eight games that Lillard has appeared in, which they are 6-2, he is averaging 26.3 points, 4.0 rebounds, 7.0 assists and is shooting 47.4% from the floor, 40.8% from three-point range. 

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This is the Damian Lillard we are used to seeing and he is starting to heat up at the right time for this team. All year long, the talk surrounding the Blazers is going to be about if Lillard wants to stay there long-term, but he rather have the discussion be about how he is playing on the floor. 

Portland seems to be missing something right now and it may very well be something Lillard cannot fix.

Both he and McCollum make up one of the better backcourts in the league, but this team’s supporting cast just doesn’t look like one that can compete for a championship. 

The Blazers are a good team and that is about it.

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There is nothing special about this group right now and even if Damian Lillard starts to have 30, 40-plus point nights, it may not be enough to push Portland into the second-round of the playoffs this year, that is if they even make the playoffs!