- Damian Lillard was the sixth pick in the 2012 NBA Draft
- Lillard revealed his ‘Welcome to the NBA’ moment came in the preseason
- Lillard wondered how he would cope with the best guards in the league after that experience
Damian Lillard’s ‘Welcome to the NBA’ moment came at the hands of an unlikely source, Goran Dragic. During an appearance on Back On Figg, Lillard recounted going up against Dragic in the preseason as a rookie.
“My rookie year we were playing in Phoenix and Goran Dragic was the starting point guard,” Lillard said. “He was starting in Phoenix, it was the preseason. This n***a was cooking me bruv… I was coming off pick and rolls, he hitting pull-up jumpers, getting to the rack, stopping, I’m fouling.”
Lillard was worried that he’d be absolutely no match for the premier point guards in the league if someone like Dragic was dominating him.
“At this time it’s like Deron Williams, Chris Paul, Tony Parker, if he doing me like this, I’m in trouble,” Lillard continued. “It just seemed like everything was going his way. I was out there like, ‘Man, this n***a is good bruv.’ That was probably the ‘Welcome to the NBA’ moment like, ‘Alright this s*** ain’t just gonna be no piece of cake.’ Everybody is good.”
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Interestingly, if you go back to the game that the seven-time All-Star is referring to here, Dragic wasn’t particularly great. He had 8 points, 5 rebounds, 9 assists, and a steal, but perhaps he was giving Lillard a lot of trouble.
While getting embarrassed by Dragic would have been concerning at the time, the Slovenian would go on to become a fine point guard in his own right. He made the All-NBA Third Team in 2014 and became an All-Star in 2018.
Lillard also mentioned that his first-ever NBA game, which was against the Los Angeles Lakers, who had Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash among their ranks at the time, was another kind of ‘Welcome to the NBA’ moment for him. He played pretty well, finishing with 23 points, 3 rebounds, 11 assists, and a steal, to get the win.
Damian Lillard’s Excellent Rookie Season
Lillard played college basketball at little-known Weber State but was still rated highly enough for the Portland Trail Blazers to select him with the sixth pick of the 2012 NBA Draft. His rookie season, though, showed he should have gone even higher.
Lillard averaged 19.0 points, 3.1 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 0.9 steals, and 0.2 blocks per game, and was crowned Rookie of the Year unanimously, getting all 121 first-place votes. He became just the fourth player in league history to win the award unanimously, after Ralph Samson, David Robinson, and Blake Griffin.
Damian Lillard Believes He Is The Best Point Guard In The NBA
In just his second season, Lillard became an All-Star and in a few years time, he established himself as one of the best point guards in the league. Safe to say, his fears about whether he’d be able to handle going up against the best dissipated fairly quickly.
The 33-year-old now believes he is the best at the position, with Lillard stating he is a better point guard than even Stephen Curry. Considering he averaged 32.2 points, 4.8 rebounds, 7.3 assists, 0.9 steals, and 0.3 blocks per game in the 2022-23 season, you can’t blame him for thinking he’s the very best.
For the NBA world to agree with him, though, he needs to win a championship. That is only going to happen if Lillard leaves the Trail Blazers, and we still can’t say for certain what’s going to happen.
It has been nearly three months since he handed in a trade request, but he still remains on the team. There was a bizarre update on the Lillard trade front recently, and at this point, no one seems to know what’s going to happen next.
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