At 32, Damian Lillard is now a veteran league point guard with eleven seasons under his belt, all at over 35 minutes per game. If he was very quickly plunged into the deep end from his rookie year in 2012, the point guard stressed the importance of learning from the veterans he rubbed shoulders with in his debut. In the podcast “The Old Man and the 3” hosted by JJ Redick, he regrets that the new generation is no longer in the same state of mind, with the same humility vis-à-vis the elders, preferring to benefit from great responsibilities. too fast.
“When I came to the league, Jason Kidd started with the Knicks. There was Grant Hill, Kurt Thomas and Kenyon Martin. They were really old guys in the league. I played with Jared Jeffries, he was 40 or 41. Earl Watson was 40 when I played with him”, did he declare. “I played with real veterans and learned a lot of things, like being a playmaker or how to lead from Mo Williams, Earl Watson and Jared Jeffries. And they weren’t even playing, it was just the way they showed how things should be done. I had no choice but to respect the game (…). When I arrived in the league, you had to deserve not only what you received from the team or the respect, but also your place in the team.
Damian Lillard therefore deplores a change in mentalities. Many young talents according to him burn the stages too quickly and have become obsessed with their individual statistics. Behaviors that can weigh on the good performance of a collective, not to mention the extra-sporting, an area in which the advice of more experienced players can also be valuable.
“There was no ‘You’re the sixth draft pick, it’s your team’. What is this story ? I think that today the biggest difference is that there is no longer this presence of veterans.he added. “So you have more talented players than ever coming into the league, they get picked 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, they make more money than those picks ever made, and on top of that , you are now giving them the keys to the franchise. »
“They play for themselves, they play for the stats. They think they’re LeBron James when they’re in the All-Star Game…”
Damian Lillard does not give a name, but we can think of the Rockets where the best young people are left to fend for themselves, or even the Pistons. In these two teams, the leaders have chosen to strongly rejuvenate the group, and these two teams have an average age of 23 years with several days under 20 years old. When Damian Lillard arrived in the NBA, he was 22…
“There is no one to make them understand that they are super talented, but that they have to earn their place here. You have to earn your place. They arrive and everything is given to them from the start. This influences their way of being, their way of playing. They play for themselves, they play for statistics. They think they’re LeBron James when they make the All-Star Game or get a max contract. It’s just different. I don’t know how to explain it, but the NBA in which I play today is no longer the one in which I arrived.
| Damian Lillard | Percentage | Bounces | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | Crew | GM | Minimum | Shots | 3 points | LF | Off | Def | Early | pd | party | Int | bp | CT | Points |
| 2012-13 | ORP | 82 | 39 | 42.9 | 36.8 | 84.4 | 0.5 | 2.6 | 3.1 | 6.5 | 2.1 | 0.9 | 3.0 | 0.2 | 19.1 |
| 2013-14 | ORP | 82 | 36 | 42.4 | 39.4 | 87.1 | 0.4 | 3.1 | 3.5 | 5.6 | 2.4 | 0.8 | 2.4 | 0.3 | 20.7 |
| 2014-15 | ORP | 82 | 36 | 43.4 | 34.3 | 86.4 | 0.6 | 4.0 | 4.6 | 6.2 | 2.0 | 1.2 | 2.7 | 0.3 | 21.0 |
| 2015-16 | ORP | 75 | 36 | 41.9 | 37.5 | 89.2 | 0.6 | 3.4 | 4.0 | 6.8 | 2.2 | 0.9 | 3.2 | 0.4 | 25.1 |
| 2016-17 | ORP | 75 | 36 | 44.4 | 37.0 | 89.5 | 0.6 | 4.3 | 4.9 | 5.9 | 2.0 | 0.9 | 2.6 | 0.3 | 27.0 |
| 2017-18 | ORP | 73 | 37 | 43.9 | 36.1 | 91.6 | 0.9 | 3.6 | 4.5 | 6.6 | 1.6 | 1.1 | 2.8 | 0.4 | 26.9 |
| 2018-19 | ORP | 80 | 36 | 44.4 | 36.9 | 91.2 | 0.9 | 3.8 | 4.6 | 6.9 | 1.9 | 1.1 | 2.7 | 0.4 | 25.8 |
| 2019-20 | ORP | 66 | 38 | 46.3 | 40.1 | 88.8 | 0.5 | 3.8 | 4.3 | 8.0 | 1.7 | 1.1 | 2.9 | 0.3 | 30.0 |
| 2020-21 | ORP | 67 | 36 | 45.1 | 39.1 | 92.8 | 0.5 | 3.8 | 4.2 | 7.5 | 1.5 | 0.9 | 3.0 | 0.3 | 28.8 |
| 2021-22 | ORP | 29 | 36 | 40.2 | 32.4 | 87.8 | 0.5 | 3.7 | 4.1 | 7.3 | 1.3 | 0.6 | 2.9 | 0.4 | 24.0 |
| 2022-23 | ORP | 54 | 36 | 46.6 | 37.3 | 91.9 | 0.7 | 3.9 | 4.7 | 7.3 | 1.9 | 0.9 | 3.2 | 0.3 | 32.2 |
| Total | 765 | 36 | 43.9 | 37.3 | 89.5 | 0.6 | 3.6 | 4.2 | 6.7 | 1.9 | 1.0 | 2.8 | 0.3 | 25.2 | |
