After a 10-4 start to the season, it has been nothing but free-falling for the Portland Trail Blazers. With a 31-40 record on the season, the team is now pretty much out of playoff contention for the second straight season.
Still, despite the team’s repeated struggles, Damian Lillard made it clear that he has no intention of rebuilding. As he recently revealed after the Blazers’ loss to the Clippers on Sunday, he has every intention to compete for a title next season.
“That’s not what I’m interested in,” Lillard said. “That’s what the frustrating part of it is. Talking about what’s gonna happen next season. And us ‘building.’ That’s not what I’m here to do, especially at this stage of my career.”
Dame might not want to rebuild, but he may not have a choice in the matter. The truth is, Portland isn’t close to winning a championship, and they need to make a series of moves before they can consider themselves a legitimate Western Conference threat.
While they do have some pieces (like Anfernee Simons and Jerami Grant), they don’t have a true co-star for Dame, and it’s been a common theme for them since he took over as the franchise guy.
Can The Blazers Build A Contending Roster This Summer?
Lillard probably isn’t going to request a trade anytime soon, but he has definitely been putting some pressure on the front office to make moves, and they’ll need to take some serious risks if they want to keep Damian happy.
“I definitely can understand what the plan is,” Lillard told Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated. “Me and Joe, one thing we do have is transparency. He knows what I want. I want to win. I want to win in Portland, and he’s expressed the same to me. He’s told me, ‘We want to give you every opportunity to win.’ But there comes a time where we have the right intentions, [but] we’ve got to execute. We have to actually make that come to life, to give ourselves a chance to really make a run at it. And because of who I know him to be, I trust him on that. I don’t ever think he would tell me one thing and then not do it. If anything, it would just be like, ‘We did our best and we couldn’t do it.’”
Only time will tell what the Blazers can do to salvage what’s left of Lillard’s prime, but neither they nor he will live it down if they can’t get at least one meaningful postseason run under their belt before it’s all said and done.
We sincerely appreciate and respect you as a reader of our site. It would help us a lot if you follow us on Google News because of the latest update.
Thanks for following us. We really appreciate your support.
