Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard sat at home on Thursday feeding his three children when texting and phone calls started to rain, informing him that he had not been selected as the Western Conference holder in the game NBA All-Star.
Although this news made many Blazers fans and some members of the media nervous, Lillard said he was not intimidated.
“I didn’t go right or left,” said Lillard. “I was like, ‘Oh.'”
The Lillard of the past could have felt more despised. Disrespected. It added him to the list of injustices during his career that he usually points to as motivation. But he is older now. Wiser.
“I felt more aware of that at the time, because I was struggling to earn that respect and receive those nods, but I think that now that I have aged and matured in the league, my goal is different,” said Lillard. “I think this is the most important thing. I’m not sweating like I did when I was a younger player. “
Lillard finished third in the fan vote for the West defense court, behind Stephen Curry of the Golden State, who is back to his MVP caliber, and Luka Doncic of Dallas. It is a virtual guarantee that Lillard will be selected for his sixth All-Star game by the coaches, but he was never voted on as a starter. What makes this situation so “controversial” is that Lillard finished second, behind Curry and ahead of Doncic, in the poll of NBA players and members of the media. But the fan vote is worth 50%, while the media and player vote is worth 25% each. This left Doncic and Lillard tied at 50% each, with the tie being the vote of the fan.
Clearly, fan voting is quite subjective and has a lot to do with popularity, whereas player and media votes would be expected to have more to do with merit.
In pure individual performance, Lillard and Doncic are so close that it would take a thorough dissection to decide which one actually performed better.
Lillard has an average of 29.8 points, 7.7 assists and 4.4 rebounds. Doncic has 29.1 points, 9.4 assists and 8.6 rebounds. Advantage, Doncic. However, Lillard’s percentage of true shooting is 62.5% compared to 58.6% for Doncic, who has the highest percentage of pitches (47.5% to 45.1%), but a lower percentage of three point pitches (33.5% to 38.4%). In addition, Doncic is more careless about basketball, averaging 4.2 spins compared to 3.1 for Lillard.
As for the team’s success, Lillard and the Blazers have a clear advantage. The Blazers are 18-10 and fourth in the Western Conference, while Dallas is 10th in 13-15. In addition, Lillard took the Blazers to this point with the second best player on the team, point guard CJ McCollum, and their third best player, center pivot Jusuf Nurkic, losing much of the season to injury.
Lillard’s relationship with the All-Star Game has certainly evolved.
Early in Lillard’s career, it was uncertain whether he would be selected as a reserve at a Western Conference filled with All-Star guards. He joined the team in 2014, but was discontinued in 2015, 2016 and 2017. However, he ended up joining the team in 2015 and 2017 as an injury substitute.
In 2017, Lillard was overshadowed by James Harden, Curry, Klay Thompson and Russell Westbrook. In 2016 it was Westbrook, Curry, Thompson, Harden and Chris Paul.
Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard (0) kicks between Oklahoma City Thunder center Al Horford (42) and center Isaiah Roby (22) in the second half of an NBA basketball game on Tuesday , February 16, 2021, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo / Sue Ogrocki)AP
To his credit, Lillard continued to improve and in 2018 he made the team a reserve and ended the season in fourth place in the MVP vote. In 2019, he returned to the team and finished sixth in the MVP vote. Last year, it was also a clear choice.
It looked like Lillard would one day be voted on as a starter, and this year more than any other seemed the best opportunity so far.
Why? Changing the landscape of the West. Harden is now in the East with Brooklyn. Westbrook is playing for Washington in the East. Thompson is out of season due to an Achilles tendon injury. Paul is still in the West, but at 35, the 10-time All-Star is not the player he was before.
Based on these developments, Lillard and Curry, averaging 30 points and 6 assists per game, would seem like the obvious choices to start with. The fact that Doncic, who turns 22 on February 28, already exceeds Lillard, 30, in popularity among fans is, in many ways, a shame. Lillard more than paid his debts and accomplished more in his career. In addition, he is legitimately better in many ways. But Lillard said that instead of being frustrated, he found solace in the support he received from the basketball community.
“I think whenever you have the support of the people who really watch the game and love it, it feels great,” said Lillard. “All I do is focus on getting better every year I come back and play, and I try to do my best to give my team a chance to do their best. In doing so, I think it shows my performance and my improvement, and I think it also shows how people have grown in terms of supporting my game and respecting what I do. “
Blazers coach Terry Stotts said that, based on what Lillard has done this season, there is no doubt that he should be a starter.
“Voting is what it is and fan voting has always been part of the All-Star Game and we consider it worthwhile,” said Stotts. “But I think we all realize that Dame is the best point guard in the league at the moment and that he should have been the starter.”
However, Stotts said the news did not shock him, given the initial ground that Lillard had to recover in the vote. He said that he and Lillard imagined that this would be the result and that the disappointment was not like in the past, when a coach simply did not choose Lillard.
As for Lillard, having heard him tell after Friday’s training, he had already changed. And despite being stolen by fan voting, he said he would not like the NBA to change its process.
“I don’t want them to change the rule because I’m not a starter,” he said.
Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard passes the ball during the first half of the NBA team’s basketball game against the Philadelphia 76ers in Portland, Oregon, Thursday, February 11, 2021. (AP Photo / Steve Dykes ) APAP
Let’s take a look at how the vote went and why Lillard was in a bad position from the start this season to be named starter on Doncic. Lillard was not so despised, as he was a victim of bad times and circumstances:
1 Fan voting has always been a popularity contest: The All-Star Game is set up to allow fans to decide who starts in the game and that voting takes place over several weeks. Therefore, to claim that someone has been “despised” on the basis of merit is absurd, since the homage is not based only on merit. In addition, voting takes place while the merit is in the process of being determined. Furthermore, the vote was never just about that season’s performance.
two The early vote did on Lillard before his hot run: Sure, the Blazers are 18-10 and set up a six-game winning streak, but their hot game came close to the end of the fan vote, which started on January 28. That day, the Blazers lost in Houston to drop to 9-8 and lost four of six games. The Blazers had not yet started to roll after the loss of McCollum and Nurkic. Dallas was 8-10 on January 28 and lost six of eight. Both teams were struggling, and their records were close enough not to be a factor for most fans. First fan results were released on February 4 and revealed that Doncic had an advantage of 1,395,719 to 998,853, a difference of 396,866, or almost 40% more votes for Doncic. Lillard was after 8-ball.
3 – Previous insights are important: Doncic entered this season out of a massive second season in the NBA and received an early MVP buzz. Doncic in 2019-20 had an average of 28.8 points, 8.8 assists and 9.4 rebounds with a real shot percentage of 58.5%. Dallas had 43-32 to win the seventh seed in the Western playoffs. Lillard took Portland to the eighth division with a 35-39 record. He also had a great season, but he lacked the same level of overall numbers as Doncic. Lillard had an average of 30 points, 8.0 assists and 4.3 rebounds with a percentage of real shots of 56.6%. Doncic advantage in both overall numbers and wins. In addition, he was a beloved instant fan. This set the stage for the vote in early 2020-21.
4 – The blazers’ trend of success ended up mattering, but not enough: The Blazers left Philadelphia on the road the night the first votes were released. However, Portland won that game without Lillard. In a sequence of four games, the Blazers had wins over Washington (4-13 at the time) and over the 76ers (without Lillard), while being eliminated 134 to 106 in Milwaukee and losing in New York to end one trip of six games from 3 to 3 on February 6. This was not a very inspiring passage. Dallas, meanwhile, had 2 to 2 in the same period, with Doncic winning 42 points and 11 assists in the victory over Curry and Golden State. Portland then beat Orlando (9-16) on February 9, two days before the next round of votes was released. It is not as if Lillard and the Blazers had done much between the start of the vote and February 11 to get voters to choose Lillard over Doncic. They went 5-3, with the most impressive win coming without Lillard. The vote count released on February 11 placed Doncic in second place (Curry led with 4,033,050 votes) with 2,484,552 votes. Lillard came in third with 2,095,157. Lillard received more votes than Doncic from the first to the second launch, but not enough to reduce his overall deficit. Lillard, however, reduced Doncic’s percentage leadership to 18.5% from 39.7%. February 11 is really when Lillard’s push started. He led the Blazers to a home win over Philadelphia to start a six-game winning streak full of great performances and moments from Lillard. Portland also won a victory over Dallas on February 14. But expecting that week-long showing to have a significant impact on the vote was unrealistic. The final vote count on Thursday was 3,335,042 for Doncic and 2,848,663 for Lillard. Doncic’s overall leadership actually grew to 486,379 votes, but the percentage difference fell to 17.1%. So clearly, Lillard’s big game and the team’s success helped him gain ground with voters. But there was no way the vote had changed enough for Lillard to make up the difference based on a week of action.
At the end of the day, winning a spot on the All-NBA team is much more important than being named All-Star holder or even All-Star reserve.
Lillard in 2016 used the cool trick of not being selected for the All-Star Game, but was named the second All-NBA team. This season, he has a legitimate chance to be named as an NBA starter after not being named All-Star. In addition, Lillard is firmly established as a league MVP candidate.
So it’s certainly not all bad from Lillard’s perspective.
– Aaron Fentress | [email protected] | @AaronJFentress (Twitter), @AaronJFentress (Instagram), @AaronFentress (Facebook).
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