This Is When the NBA Finds Out About the Real Damian Lillard
Despite a superstar profile and plenty of early-career accolades, Damian Lillard hasn't yet shown the NBA who he truly is.
This year, stripped of a supporting cast and saddled with unquestioned alpha status, he will.
Lillard is all that remains of a Portland Trail Blazers starting unit that won a combined 105 games over the past two seasons. LaMarcus Aldridge, Wesley Matthews and Robin Lopez vacated the state of Oregon via free agency, and Nicolas Batum was sent away in a trade to the Charlotte Hornets. Now, players who are young, unproven or both surround Lillard in their place.
In the press conference announcing Lillard's five-year, $120 million extension, Blazers general manager Neil Olshey called the contract a "hell of a place to start." Portland gutted the house, and Lillard, the foundation, is all that's left. We'll soon see if he's sturdy enough to build on.
At first blush, it seems like there should be no question about Lillard's fitness as a cornerstone. He was the 2012-13 Rookie of the Year, a two-time All-Star, a max-contract recipient and a remarkably reliable presence in the Blazers lineup; Lillard has never missed a regular-season game.
There's more.
In the entire course of NBA history, there have been just 16 seasons in which a player totaled at least 450 assists and made 185 three-point shots, according to Basketball-Reference.com. Lillard, who's pulled off the feat in every year of his career, has three of those 16 seasons.
And he already has the signature highlight (and love of a city) that marks a superstar.
For some Blazers loyalists, Lillard has already proved he's fit for the challenging task ahead. For the rest of us, there are still questions to answer.
Offensive Defense
The shakiest aspect of Lillard's game is his defense.
Last season, he ranked 30th among point guards (and 22nd among starting point guards) in ESPN.com's defensive real plus-minus rating. And while on-off splits don't always tell the whole story, it's still worth noting that the Trail Blazers allowed 5.2 fewer points per 100 possessions on defense when Lillard was on the bench, per NBA.com.
When you scan the lowlights for evidence of Lillard's issues on D, the video supports the ugly numbers.
Take these three plays from Game 1 of the Blazers' first-round series against the Memphis Grizzlies as examples.
First, we see Lillard standing straight up in transition, allowing the left-handed Mike Conley to get all the way to the foul line before engaging him:
By the time Lillard shuffles past Aldridge, Conley has already blown past him to his strong hand.
This is basic stuff: failing to get into a defensive stance, not picking up his man until it's way too late and, most obviously, allowing an opponent to get to his dominant hand without resistance.
Often, the mere threat of a screen causes Lillard to lurch out of position:
An inability to navigate screens was exactly why the San Antonio Spurs relentlessly targeted him in the 2014 postseason:
Those are just a handful of instances, but they're emblematic of all the problems that contribute to Lillard's defensive woes. And despite looking so bad in Game 1 of that Memphis series, here's how Lillard allowed Game 2 to begin:
If he's the key defender at the point of attack, how is Portland supposed to engineer a half-decent scheme going forward? There's no shortage of dangerous players at Lillard's position; playing in the golden age of point guards means facing a brutal challenge almost every night.
To be fair to Lillard, he actually improved his defensive numbers last year. But what happens now that Matthews and Batum, two accomplished stoppers, aren't around to take on the tougher matchups? Head coach Terry Stotts frequently hid Lillard on weaker opponents last year, but now there's nowhere to hide.
Ironically, the only time Lillard gets notably defensive is when his defense is questioned.
Here's what he told Jason Quick of the Oregonian in 2014:
"What do I need to do? I'm out here going through 80 pick-and-rolls, 60 pick-and-rolls a game, using that same amount of pick-and-rolls. If you go to look at film—and that’s why I say 'are you looking at box scores or are you actually watching the game?'—if you look at film, I'm not just out here getting scored on.
"
Actually, he is just out there getting scored on. And he's not the only point guard who has to navigate screens; all of them do in a league increasingly dependent on the pick-and-roll as an offensive staple. It's true that Lillard shoulders a heavier load on offense than most, but that burden is only going to grow as he assumes more responsibility next season.
And if he feels targeted, it's probably because he's been such an easy one.
The Rocky Offensive Road Ahead
Lillard's offensive performance is less of a concern, but it's still a source of uncertainty.
A truly foundational superstar should show signs of growth in his early career, but the surprising truth is that many of Lillard's key offensive numbers haven't improved at all. Though his usage rate has steadily increased, Lillard's effective field-goal percentage hasn't changed much. There's value in sustaining efficiency while increasing volume, but the Blazers need Lillard to make leaps forward.
For the most part, he's remained the same offensive player.
| 2012-13 | 24.2 | 50.1 |
| 2013-14 | 25.0 | 50.8 |
| 2014-15 | 26.9 | 50.6 |
Now, there's good reason to expect some of Lillard's steady numbers to dive, according to Michael Pina of Sports on Earth:
"His true shooting percentage (which accounts for free-throw shooting as well as three-pointers) didn't compare favorably to the rest of the league's elite, and his three-point percentage dipped lower than people think (34.3 percent on 572 attempts from 39.4 percent on 554 attempts the previous season). Using even more possessions next year, with less talent around him, it's really hard to see how those numbers don't crash.
"
Another troubling sign: His production suffered when he didn't have Aldridge on the floor with him last season, per NBA.com.
| With Aldridge | 28.4 | 52.0 | 25.3 | 2.42 |
| Without Aldridge | 31.1 | 47.5 | 30.4 | 1.99 |
A secondary scouting-report concern for his entire career to this point, Lillard will now be the primary focus of every defense he faces.
The Aldridge safety net is gone.
Rising to the Challenge
The good news is that Terry Stotts' offense—built on ball movement, spacing and lots of three-point shots—figures to give Lillard as much help as any strategy could. Defenders will certainly key on him, but Lillard has always been a willing passer. And if young talents like Meyers Leonard and C.J. McCollum improve, he could have more reliable outlets than most expect.
Maybe newcomer Gerald Henderson can handle the tougher defensive matchups, and perhaps Noah Vonleh blossoms into a finisher and rim protector Lillard can trust.
Maybe being thrust into an unquestioned leadership position, becoming the sole focus of every defensive game plan and being asked to give a potentially lost season real meaning will force Lillard to find a higher plane of play.
The potential embarrassment of being exposed as overrated is huge, and fear of failure can be a big motivator.
Chances are, that's not how Lillard will view the challenge of the upcoming season. More likely, he'll attack it as yet another opportunity to shout down the doubters—the ones who didn't believe in him coming out of high school and then looked askance at his mid-major college pedigree.
"I don't really see it as pressure," Lillard told reporters in July. "I know that I have confidence in being the leader of a team, but if people want to point the finger at me if it doesn't go right right away, I can deal with that."
Long odds and loud questions are nothing new to Lillard.
If he answers these new questions like he did the ones in the past, the Blazers will know they've got the leader they think they do.
And they'll learn, along with everyone else watching, who the real Damian Lillard is.
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