Ahead of the 2022-23 season, nobody had the Trail Blazers pegged as contenders for the championship. But, with a few impressive wins under their belt now, Portland is quickly taking the league by storm in these first few games of the season.
While the rest of the league may be surprised, Blazers star Damian Lillard saw it coming from a mile away. In fact, as he told reporters this week, he expects to compete at the highest level with this squad this year.
“I’m coming out here to win,” Lillard said. “And everybody gotta be on that. We coming out here to win. Now, are we gonna lose some games? Everybody’s gonna lose some games. As we gonna go 70-12? No, we’re not going 70-12. But, we represent winning. Since I’ve been here we haven’t won a championship but we win a lot of games and that mentality is no different. It’s just that people don’t expect it from us. And that’s a great place to be where they’re not expecting it.”
“I’m coming out here to win and everybody gotta be on that”
Damian Lillard talks about the expectations for Rip City.
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In the aftermath of the CJ McCollum trade, nobody really knows how the Blazers stack up against the Western elites. With Jerami Grant, Josh Hart, Jusuf Nurkic, and Anfernee Simons, the Trail Blazers have a solid cast of role players that can rival the depth chart of any team in the league.
Of course, the team’s success will mostly depend on the play and leadership of Damian Lillard himself, who has expressed his drive to win time and time again.
“I want to win as a Trail Blazer,” Lillard said. “I want to win a championship where I am. I don’t think I would feel the same joy and happiness if I did it elsewhere. I would be happy, no doubt. Like winning a chip, you get that experience. But I know how I want it.”
“The way I look at it is I grew up in that type of environment: You got to be for your family, you got to be for your people,” he said. “That’s just what my family stood for. My dad, my mom, my brother, my cousins, and my grandparents, uncles, aunties: I’ve seen plenty of my family members have arguments and disagreements. There might have been a fight or whatever, but we were like this. Still, this to this day. So all I know is to roll with your own. Roll with your people.”
So far, the Blazers have not yet made a run to the Finals. But this could be the year they pull it off. If the chips fall the right way, and Portland is in a position to take advantage of the situation, things could get interesting in the Pacific Northwest this year.
Either way, as long as Damian Lillard is on the team, the Blazers will always be in the fight.
