Damian Lillard: The Pride of Oakland

Photo Credit: USA Today

On July 15th 1990, a star was born. Nobody knew it yet, but Damian Lamonte Ollie Lillard was a special person. Lillard was born into a place that was run by gangs. A place that was patrolled by a corrupt police force. Crime rates were off the charts and it was rare for a kid born there to not get sucked into that. Damian Lillard however, went against the grain. He found his escape from that life. That escape was basketball. Lillard didn’t grow up in a family with money and the town they lived in didn’t have any nice facilities for him to play basketball in.

There was a tree branch out in his yard that curled a bit, kind of making it shaped like a hoop. He would shoot a flat ball through it all day. He wasn’t given the opportunity to play with nice hoops on nice courts. When he was able he would go down to the local recreational center and play all day. He would show up before it opened and be forced out at night. These were the days of young Damian Lillard, playing basketball all day in the dusty old gym around the corner from his grandparents house. Basketball was Lillard’s first love and he never stopped playing. He started playing AAU basketball in fifth grade and he played with the same team until he finished.

All of Lillard’s hard work finally payed off when he made the varsity team his freshman year at Arroyo High School. He was a good player, nothing special, but he was good enough to start. He would’ve stayed there for all four years too, maybe stuck in mediocrity had his coach not left the team. When he found out that his coach was leaving, Lillard knew that he was going to transfer schools in an attempt to further his basketball skills.

He decided that he would transfer to a private school that Jason Kidd had also once attended: Saint Joseph Notre Dame. He went there with an expectation to start again, so he was naturally surprised when he was benched. He felt offended and developed a kind of sour relationship with his coach at the time. Lillard was very unhappy with the news but he handled it in the best way possible. Instead of getting upset and shutting down like others might, he took it as motivation and turned up the intensity. However, he knew that he no longer wanted to play at that school.

He transferred once again to Oakland High and that is where he spent the rest of his high school career. His first season at Oakland High was his junior year. That season he led the league in scoring. This was the first time in his young career that he really showed his true promise. He played his senior year at Oakland high as well. However, his time at Oakland High is not what set him apart from the others. He really recognized his true potential because of his summer team coach, Raymond Young, who had been coaching him since 8th grade.

Young pushed them to their limit to make them better and it certainly helped Lillard. However, possibly the most defining moment of Lillard’s entire basketball career was after him and his AAU flopped in their final tournament before Lillard’s junior season of high school. Coach Young brought the entire team back to his hotel room and took time to tell each player what they did wrong. He saved Lillard for last. He was relentless when criticizing Damian’s game, not because he was the worst, but because Young knew he had tremendous potential. He told Lillard that he could play big time college basketball but he didn’t work hard enough. Young criticized Lillard’s work ethic and knocked his effort in practice and games. When Lillard  heard this he knew that he couldn’t let his coach be right, so he went on to try and prove him wrong.

Coming out of high school Lillard wasn’t recruited by many schools. He went on to accept the only scholarship offer he received which was to the very small school, Weber State. In Lillard’s freshman season at Weber State, he averaged about 30 minutes per game while scoring about 11 points per game. He was awarded with conference freshman of the year and first team all Big Sky honors. In his sophomore season he took a big step forward, bumping his scoring average up to 19.9 points per game to go along with about 3.5 assists. Lillard’s efforts gave Weber State the conference title. It also gave him Big Sky player of the year as well as an honorable mention in the All American conversation.

What came next, was probably the hardest part of Lillard’s entire career. After 10 games of his junior season, Lillard went down with a foot injury that kept him out for a year. You can imagine how a competitor like Lillard felt about having to sit out and watch his team compete without him. He came back for his senior year of college with vengeance in his eyes. It became quickly apparent that Lillard was on another level. The redshirt junior averaged 24.5 points in his senior year! He finished second in scoring only to Oakland’s Reggie Hamilton. Lillard was a finalist for the Bob Cousy award too. Though Kendall Marshall ended up winning, Lillard has obviously ended up with more success in the long term.

Now, obviously coming out of such a small school that didn’t play many good teams, people were skeptical about whether or not Lillard would be successful in the NBA. His scouting report said that he hadn’t faced enough good competition or that he hadn’t proven himself or that he couldn’t play defense to save his life. This doubt caused him to fall all the way to sixth despite being easily the second best or even THE best player in his draft. You can bet that the Trailblazers were very thankful for all of the teams that passed on him, as they got a once in a lifetime talent. Damian Lillard set out to make his family and his city proud in the NBA, and make them proud he did. In his rookie season, Lillard surprised everyone. He ended the season with averages of 19 points and 6.5 assists. Those are numbers that no one expected small time kid out of Weber State. He had high expectations coming into his second year in the league.

Some wondered if he would be as good as he was in his rookie season. He came in and once again proved all doubters wrong. In his sophomore season, Lillard averaged 20.7 points per game, once again proving to be the dangerous scoring threat that he knew he could be since his days as a kid in Oakland. He even added on to his reputation last year, becoming one of the most dangerous and clutch shooters in the game, sinking multiple game winning shots in the regular season. However, the most impressive part of his career may have been the poise he displayed in last year’s playoffs.

In the first round, Lillard’s Trailblazers were matched up against James Harden and the Houston Rockets. The Blazers jumped out to an 3-2 lead in the series and took it home to Portland to try to close it out. It was a close game to the end. The Rockets were leading by two points with about 45 seconds left, when Nic Batum drove in and hit a fadeaway to tie it. The Rockets then brought it down to try to win the game with 40 seconds left. They missed a couple shots but the Blazers could not grab the rebound. This led to a Chandler Parsons put back with .9 seconds left to give Houston the two point lead. Everyone, including myself, thought the game was over at this point. Damian Lillard however, was not done. With .9 seconds left on the clock, Lillard got ready. He knew he was the first look on the inbounds. When the whistle blew he took off, leaving his defenders in the dust. Batum passed it to him, and with one flick of his wrist, Lillard made history. It’s not everyday someone hits a game winning shot to win a playoff series. But that one kid from Oakland, he had the guts to try.

Lillard fought through all of the hardships and pain to get to this level. He fought his hardest to prove everyone wrong, which he did. He’s still doing it today. In his third season, Lillard is continuing to produce for the Blazers. He’s averaging about 20 points per game. He’s also averaging a career high seven assists. The most impressive though, is his career high field goal percentage which is at 46 percent.

Lillard is an exciting young player – and with his backstory – it’s pretty hard not to root for him. He’s a mild-mannered young man that likes to keep to himself. Little would anyone know what he went through going up, but when you see him on the court, he’s a cold blooded killer. He won’t stop competing until the day he dies and that what makes him special. He has made his city proud.