Damian Lillard has no doubt about what could have been in Portland. Reflecting on his early years with LaMarcus Aldridge, the Trail Blazers legend said their group had all the pieces to compete for a championship and believes they would have broken through if not for injuries and inexperience.
“I felt like, in the next one or two years, we would have won it,” said Lillard on his YouTube channel. “We were one of the best teams in my second year, just inexperienced. We were one of the best teams for a long time. In my third year, we just had a lot of injuries, like major injuries. I feel like that fourth year would have been a good year.”
Lillard’s tenure in Portland is mostly defined by mediocrity and early playoff exits. Whether it was alongside CJ McCollum or Carmelo Anthony, Lillard’s Blazers teams rarely advanced past the first round of the postseason. Still, there was a stretch early in his career where Lillard had a real chance to win a ring.
From 2012 to 2015, Lillard got to play alongside LaMarcus Aldridge, who was one of the best power forwards in the league at the time. By the time Lillard was drafted, Aldridge was fresh off his first All-Star team and just entering his prime at 27 years old.
Together, Aldridge and Lillard showed a lot of promise on the court, and their contrasting size and skills helped give the Blazers a more balanced roster. Unfortunately, it didn’t pan out as smoothly as they had hoped.
In Damian’s rookie season, the Trail Blazers finished 11th in the West (33-49). It wasn’t until the 2013-14 campaign that Portland began to make some noise. They finished fifth that season at 54-28 with Lillard making his first All-Star team. Finally, in the 2014-15 season, the star duo elevated the Blazers to fourth in the West (51-31) before being knocked out by the Grizzlies in the first round.
Thanks to injuries and inexperience, the Trail Blazers never achieved playoff success in that stretch, and Aldridge was gone before Lillard’s fourth year. Apparently, LaMarcus left after hearing the Blazers were Lillard’s team, and he signed with the Spurs in a move that forever changed the Western Conference hierarchy.
Losing their most experienced star for nothing pushed the Blazers back years, and it wasn’t until much later that they were competitive again. The cycle of losing became so bad that Lillard himself departed in a shocking trade request that resulted in a trade to the Bucks.
Damian is back in Portland now, but times have changed. At 35 and coming off an Achilles tear, Lillard is on the decline now, and the franchise is more focused on developing its youth than catering to more proven veterans.
Still, no matter what happens next, Lillard will always look back on his run with LaMarcus as a missed opportunity. Had the team stayed healthy or had Aldridge given the Blazers some more time, NBA history might have been forever changed.
For Lillard, the “what if” with Aldridge will always be one of the biggest unanswered questions of his career. Portland had a rare window with two All-NBA talents in their primes, and Lillard remains convinced that with just a little more health and patience, they could have gone all the way. Instead, it became another story of potential that never fully materialized, the kind that still lingers years later.
