PORTLAND, Ore. — If you are bummed about the state of the Trail Blazers these days — losers of four straight and six of seven while toting an injury list longer than Yang Hansen’s wingspan — let me offer some perspective. Some hope. And some advice from Damian Lillard.
This journey to your potential salvation began in the most random of places Wednesday morning. It was at the end of the Chicago Bulls shootaround at the Moda Center. The first bus, carrying head coach Billy Donovan and the majority of the Bulls players, had long chortled away back to the team hotel. A handful of players remained, including Zach Collins, who was celebrating his 28th birthday by going through a rehabilitation workout on the court.
Collins, if you remember, played his first three seasons in Portland, and was there for the franchise’s last shining moment — a playoff run to the 2019 Western Conference finals.
As Collins went through a shooting drill around the perimeter, Bulls assistant L.D. Williams asked Collins where he was when Lillard hit the most famous shot in franchise history — a 37-foot bomb at the buzzer to eliminate the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round of the playoffs.
It had been years since Collins had thought about the shot, and he twirled in a circle as he tried to get his bearings and remember the particulars. Eventually, he pointed back to the Blazers bench, where he stood in that moment with teammates Enes Kanter and Meyers Leonard.
“Where exactly did he shoot it from?” another coach asked.
As Collins pointed to the spot, Bulls players Coby White and Patrick Williams started recalling their memories, and they began theorizing on the physics of how Lillard was able to shoot such a long shot with such fluidity and ease.
“I definitely remember it, the impact of it, it was a series-clincher, right?” White said later. “We just started talking about how guys like Dame, Steph (Curry) and Trae (Young) shoot from so deep.”
It struck me, that nearly seven years later, players and coaches around the league are still talking about that shot, still talking about that moment.
“But what people don’t realize,” Collins said later, “is that there was more meaning in that shot than just winning that game.”
Hold that thought while I take you back to the summer of 2014.
One of my lasting images of Lillard will always be a summer day in 2014, when I interviewed him at the Blazers practice facility while he signed a series of photographs.
The photos were of what at that time stood as one of the more memorable shots in Blazers history — his series-winning 3-pointer to beat the Houston Rockets off an inbounds play that started with 0.9 seconds remaining.
As he signed, he let out a groan and a sigh. He understood the benefit of memorializing the shot that provided the Blazers with their first playoff series victory in 14 years, but he hated the optics.
I asked why autographing the photos bothered him. He noted it was a great moment, but he didn’t like dwelling on it, he didn’t like continually reliving it.
“I have greater moments ahead,” Lillard said.
So after hearing Bulls players and coaches grill Collins about the 2019 shot, I couldn’t help but wonder how Lillard viewed the 2019 shot.
Later that night, when I saw Lillard in the back hallways of the Moda Center, I asked him whether he looked at the OKC shot through a different lens. Did he look at it with more nostalgia because he is 35? Does he use it as a carrot to chase as he rehabilitates from a ruptured Achilles?
“I look at it the same as I did back (in 2014),” Lillard said. “I still think I have better moments ahead.”
The Blazers signed Lillard to a two-year contract for just that reason — to meet the big moments — even though they knew his recovering Achilles would not allow him to play this season. And already, Lillard says he is envisioning, picturing … almost sensing those moments coming.
“Everything is happening in a weird way,” Lillard said. “What are the chances that I tear my Achilles and I get waived with two years left … and the first team I think of — and the first team that contacted me — is the Blazers? And me being back here … you know, I had to go away for this team to be assembled. And now it’s a team that I would have wanted to play on for years. So now I have a year to connect with this team while building my body up to get ready to go.
“It’s all setting up for that type of moment (like 2019),” Lillard said.
Now, back to that thought from Collins, the notion that Lillard’s shot in 2019 meant more than just winning a game, and how it ties into the current state of the Blazers.
See, before that playoff run to the conference finals was a year of anguish. The Blazers in 2018 were formidable, earning the No. 3 seed in the playoffs, but they were swept in embarrassing fashion by Jrue Holiday, Anthony Davis and the New Orleans Pelicans.
It felt like that iteration of the Blazers had run its course. Change seemed inevitable, from a dismissal of head coach Terry Stotts to breaking up the dynamic but defensively challenged backcourt of Lillard and CJ McCollum.
But owner Paul Allen and general manager Neil Olshey held strong. They endorsed Stotts, and brought back the core. Patience won over a purge.
And it led to a great moment.
“If you were here during that time,” Collins said, “you understood what went into (Dame’s shot).”
Collins said the Blazers heard and felt all the turmoil, doubt and questions coming from the outside, but they bonded in their belief that they had the right people and they were doing the right things.
“That team, we showed up every day, did our work, did the right thing, we just got swept,” Lillard said. “I didn’t make shots, CJ didn’t make shots, and (we) had a good game plan. But we just moved forward.”
And that brings us to today, and this Blazers team, and the message Lillard is trying to land from the sideline and from inside the locker room.
For the first time in four seasons, the Blazers have hope. They aren’t quite deep enough, or seasoned enough, but behind the All-Star-level play of Deni Avdija, the steadiness of Jrue Holiday, the resurgence of Jerami Grant, the scoring of Shaedon Sharpe and the promise of Donovan Clingan and Toumani Camara, the Blazers have at times looked special.
Yes, they have key players injured, and can’t seem to regain the magic that sparked early wins over the Thunder, Nuggets, Lakers and Warriors, but they appear to be onto something.
It’s on a different scale, but these Blazers need patience just like that 2018 team. Not just patience as far as keeping the roster together, but patience in knowing that true growth in the NBA comes with pains.
“It’s a good test, a good time to realize that you don’t get ahead of nothing,” Lillard said. “Your time is your time.”
During this losing streak, Lillard said he has been planting seeds of wisdom, and offering perspective to keep the team pointed in the right direction.
“I told these dudes: this is the time when you find your true identity,” Lillard said. “It’s not when you win a couple games and everything feels good. It’s in the moments when it would be easy to walk away — like now, we have some injuries, a rough patch, a tough schedule — but this is the time when you make a decision to march forward and up.”
Lillard was quick to point out that what the Blazers are going through now — the injuries, their coach being placed on leave amid a gambling probe, two buzzer-beating losses — won’t be solved by any rah-rah, inspirational speech from him. The turnaround has to come from within by building good habits, supporting each other, and trusting that hard work produces good results.
“Hey, we might lose five more games, but what matters is not what we say to the media,” Lillard said. “it’s how we walk into the locker room and talk to each other, or whether we get to practice and it’s quiet and nobody says anything … like, you gotta have that feeling of ‘Man, this sucks.’ But you have to have the actions of ‘this is not breaking me.’
“Delivering that messaging, that experience, is kind of my position on this team,” Lillard said. “And their position is to experience it and know that my perspective doesn’t come from ‘I think’ …
“It comes from ‘I did it.’”