After 11 years of clutch time moments and 7 All-Star appearances, the Portland basketball icon, Damian Lillard, has departed to the Milwaukee Bucks. After his long attempts of chasing a NBA Championship as the underdog story, Lillard made it clear through trade requests that he would need assistance in his quest for a NBA Championship ring.
According to Sports Skeeda, Damian Lamonte Ollie Lillard was born in 1990 in Oakland, California. He played high school basketball for Oakland High School. He then took his talents to Weber State in Utah for four years, earning a degree in professional sales. This path led to Lillard being the 6th overall pick in the 2012 NBA draft.
After 769 games played, Lillard leads the Blazers in both points and 3-pointers. He not only put up some of the best numbers in the franchise, he created a 7 time All-Star out of himself since being drafted.
Now that Lillard has departed to the Milwaukee Bucks the community will miss the ‘Dame Time’ buzzer beaters and clutch endgame moments that he brought to the city. While the Blazers fan base will certainly miss the seven time All-Star, fans say the Blazers have a bright future to look forward to after splurging on young talent in the draft and through trades this season.
“I think it was a pretty fair trade cause we got a lot of young talents that we are trying to build around at the moment, also a couple of veterans that will help out the team and I think that the rebuild is going pretty well,” said junior Charlie McCalla.
Lillard’s departure may spark a young player to step up and be the next star of the Trail Blazers but it will take more than a series of good performances in order to replace a player such as Damian Lillard.
Junior Sebastion Vallejos-Rubio shares what he thought Lillard meant to the community.
“Dame was the face of the franchise and so a lot of people looked up to him. He’s left his mark on the city, and yeah it has really inspired a lot of people,” he said.
Damian Lillard is irreplaceable but the Portland and Lincoln community have a lot to look forward to with a strong group of young ball players coming into the league hungry to rack up some wins for the Blazers.
