Portland Trail Blazers: 3 players facing the most pressure in 2019-20
By Amaar Burton
1. Damian Lillard
If Damian Lillard was writing this article, he would list Damian Lillard as the Blazers player facing the most pressure in 2019-20. He is the type of athlete who eats pressure and craps highlights.
In an era when the NBA’s biggest superstars will move from team to team to suit their needs, Lillard has gone against the grain and embraced the role of the loyal local legend who plans to stay where he started and fight against the super teams rather than join or create one.
Damian Lillard on leaving Trail Blazers for super team: ‘We would win it, but what is the challenge or the fun in that?’ https://t.co/oBj6sPxQGY
— Kurt Helin (@basketballtalk) August 22, 2019
Thiss means that for as long as Lillard is in Portland, he’ll be fighting an especially rigorous uphill battle to bring the Blazers a championship. The pressure will be on him as the leader and marquee attraction to make it happen.
Whereas stars like Stephen Curry and Dwyane Wade were not heavily criticized for recruiting elite talent to join them, Lillard would be treated differently because he’s been so public in presenting himself as their opposite. In terms of maintaining his reputation, Lillard has put himself in a position where he has to accept whatever the Blazers’ front office brings to him without complaint.
Lillard’s last two seasons have been career-defining. He was named All-NBA First Team in 2017-18 and finished fourth in league MVP voting. Last season he averaged 25.8 points and a career-high 6.9 assists per game, finishing sixth in MVP voting and making All-NBA Second Team.
Lillard’s magnum opus was the Blazers’ 2019 first-round series against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Going head-to-head with rival Russell Westbrook, Lillard averaged 33.0 points and 6.0 assists per game, shooting 46.1 percent from the field and 48.1 percent from 3-point range.
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In Game 5, Lillard dropped 50 points and hit a buzzer-beating deep 3-pointer to win the game and the series on his home court. It was arguably the single greatest moment of the entire playoffs. With another postseason run ending abruptly, however, the pressure increases on Lillard to write a different story for the Blazers this time around.