The Portland Trail Blazers are on pace for their third sub-.500 season in the past four years, and their fluky run to the 2019 Western Conference Finals is a distant memory. Damian Lillard is having the most statistically productive individual season of his career, posting a career high in scoring (32.2 ppg) while also matching his career high in field goal percentage (.463) and exceeding his career averages in both assists and rebounds. As long as Lillard shines while the Trail Blazers struggle, there will be speculation about whether the undersized 32 year old guard will decide that he wants out and whether the franchise will decide that a rebuild is necessary.
Lillard has consistently stated that he will never leave Portland. In a December 10, 2019 The Players Tribune article titled "Loyalty Over Everything," Lillard declared his permanent commitment to the city and the team while also snapping back at the notion that his logo shots are low percentage attempts:
I'm saying, you think you know how deep this goes, but you have no idea. When I say that I will never, ever switch up on the city of Portland, I mean what I say. When I say that I will never, ever switch up on this organization, I mean what I say.
They might switch up on me. That's business. That's basketball. But I will never switch up on the city. I don't want it easy. I'm drawn to the struggle. When I came here, we hadn't won a playoff series since 2000. You had so many injuries to franchise guys like Brandon Roy and Greg Oden over the years, and it's so tough to come back from that. Even going way back, you had All-Stars like Clyde Drexler and Bill Walton who didn't choose to end their careers as a Blazer.
Well, I'm going to be that. I'm going to carry that. I'm going to bring a ring to this city or go down swinging...
I ain't turning my back on the city, because the city has been riding with me since Day One.
I'm not for the fake or the pretend. Too much of that going around these days. I'm for the authentic. It's the same as it was when we were sleeping four-to-a-motel-room with the Rebels. I'm trying to win with my people. Everything I ever experienced, every chapter of it, the good and the bad and the grimy, that's what made me.
That's what's so funny to me, when people want to talk to me about the buzzer-beater against OKC, or the one against Houston--like, "That’s a bad shot."
You think I was improvising? You think I was panicking? You think I didn't know exactly what I was doing?
We didn't grow up playing in a lab, bruh. We didn't grow up getting boxes of shoes in the mail. We didn't grow up with a trainer and a video team. That shot is 20 years old. I've been making it since 2001 on a milk crate on Beverly Ave.
A 37-footer, it's not for everybody, I know.
But you know what? This story is not for everybody, either.
Here is my take on Lillard's logo shot to eliminate the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2019 playoffs:
Lillard averaged 33.0 ppg, 6.0 apg and 4.4 rpg in the first round, with .461/.481/.846 shooting splits. He ended the series in dramatic fashion with a game-winning shot from well beyond the three point line. There has been a lot of discussion about whether or not that was a good shot but this is simple: when a team gets the ball with more than 10 seconds left in a tie game and ends up shooting the ball from nearly 40 feet, that is not a good shot and it is certainly not an optimal shot, unless one is saying that the coaching staff and players are so inept that they cannot run a play to generate a high percentage shot in that time frame against that particular team.
Much has been made about Lillard practicing that shot and having shot a good percentage on a small sample size of those shots; does that mean if a player practices half court shots and shoots a high percentage on a small number of them then he should deliberately aim to shoot a half court shot with a playoff game on the line? Get out of here. Lillard demonstrated a lot of confidence and a lot a skill and he deserves credit for his play throughout the series--more so than for just hitting one shot--but by no means was that a good shot or an optimal shot in that situation.
Here is my take on Lillard's logo shots in general, written after his Trail Blazers lost 4-2 to the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the 2021 playoffs:
Despite all of the attention that is paid to numbers/"analytics" in recent years, there is still a significant lack of understanding and discernment regarding which numbers are meaningful and how to interpret those numbers. To cite two examples, a lot of attention is paid to overall shooting efficiency and last second shots. Shooting efficiency matters, but it must be placed in context by understanding a player's role and skill set. A player who is very efficient on a small number of field goal attempts is not a franchise player, but a player whose numbers may not look efficient may still be a franchise player if he has the necessary skill set and mentality to control a game down the stretch because controlling a game down the stretch matters more than hitting last second shots; to some extent, last second shots are random events. Kobe Bryant's game-winning shot versus the Phoenix Suns during game four of the 2006 NBA playoffs is an exciting and oft-replayed highlight, but Bryant's ability to control a game down the stretch--which he displayed in many games in the NBA Finals and Conference Finals en route to winning five NBA titles--is more impressive and meaningful. Yes, you need the right skill set and mentality to make a buzzer beater, but it is easier to hit one shot than it is to take over a game for an extended period of time.
Lillard's "logo shots" are fun to watch, and he deserves credit for honing his craft to the extent that he is willing and able to make those shots--but Lillard is not consistently able to take over playoff games down the stretch for extended periods of time. Yes, if the game is close in the final seconds he can hit a "logo shot" to save his team, but late in a playoff series he is more likely to wear down than he is to take over. Lillard had a very productive series versus Denver, but--as often happens with smaller players--he wore down and he did not have much left in the tank late in game six with the outcome still up for grabs: he shot 1-9 from the field in the second half, including 1-5 in the fourth quarter.
I respect Lillard's work ethic, his skill set, and his mentality of trying to win in Portland as opposed to going somewhere else to form a "super team." It is not disrespectful to Lillard to state the truth: an undersized player is not going to lead a team to an NBA title, especially when that undersized player relies on long jumpers for a team that is subpar defensively and cannot survive high variance shooting. Even if Lillard can make 40% of his "logo shots"--and he clearly cannot do that late in a series when he is worn down--that would still mean that 60% of the possessions during which he shoots those shots are empty possessions (not including a few offensive rebounds or defensive fouls). A poor defensive team cannot survive that many empty possessions.
The reason that I am revisiting what I wrote several years ago about Lillard is that the analysis proved to be correct: Lillard has not come close to leading Portland back to the Western Conference Finals, and his ability to hit a few logo shots has not translated into consistent team success in either the regular season or the playoffs. In short, when Lillard, a "stat guru," or anyone else asserts that Lillard's logo shots are good shots they are wrong, at least in terms of those shots being good shots in the context of long term team success; obviously, a particular shot that wins a game produced a good short term result, but that does not mean the shot was optimal even in that instance, and it is evident that a steady diet of such shots is not optimal (or sustainable, as noted above).
Although I disagree with Lillard about his logo shots, I admire his loyalty. Loyalty is a very important character trait, and one that seems to be disappearing not only in the NBA but in society in general. Lillard mentioned that the city and team believed in him from the start, and therefore he will remain loyal to Portland until the end. That is a refreshing perspective that stands in marked contrast to the attitude displayed by players like LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden who jump from team to team searching for greener pastures. Some people argue that because teams sometimes are not loyal the players should not be expected to be loyal, but Lillard understands that loyalty is not about how others treat you but how you treat others. As he wrote, "They might switch up on me. That's business." Lillard's character and his decisions are not swayed by what others have done or might do. So many people talk about "keeping it real," but there are few players in the NBA who keep it real to the extent that Lillard does. I still don't believe that he will lead Portland to a championship, but I respect his belief in himself, and I have even greater respect for his loyalty.