Let’s just start out with this, right from the top, and right from the man’s mouth: Damian Lillard, on Friday, once again said he wants to stay in Portland.
Doesn’t matter if the Blazers start this season losing more games than they win. Doesn’t matter if they struggle to make the playoffs. Doesn’t matter if another superstar lobbies for his services.
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“Everybody is saying what they think I’m thinking, and what they think I’m going to do, but like, I’m not leaving Portland, you know?” Lillard said.
It was an even stronger affirmation of his loyalty to the Trail Blazers than the one he made on media day when he vowed that he would “go out on his shield” trying to bring a title to Portland.
But never before has he revealed exactly why his mind and his heart have returned to Portland after a tumultuous summer when he considered thoughts of uprooting from Portland.
The main reason? New coach Chauncey Billups.
Lillard told The Athletic that a series of conversations with Billups over the summer helped center his thoughts back to Portland and what could happen if he stayed.
Those conversations — Billups said it was five or six, some of them in person, some on the phone — dealt with basketball philosophy, strategies and concepts. But they also involved topics that penetrated to Lillard’s core. They talked about family, life after basketball, and the qualities found in a winner.
Lillard left the conversations inspired, encouraged and enamored. What he saw in his new coach was what he saw in himself.
“I think a big part of (my change in mindset) was me and Chauncey’s conversations, and where we see things the same,” Lillard told The Athletic. “I’m not going to share details of our conversations, but it’s not often when I speak to people that they see what I see. Watching a game, observing people … there’s not many people who see what I see. But a lot of what I see, he sees. So that was very important to me. Like, that was a big deal.”
Before their conversations, Billups said he was aware of Lillard’s unhappiness with the end of the Blazers’ season, and that his superstar might have been entertaining thoughts of asking out of Portland. But he said he never approached their talks as if he was trying to convince Lillard to stay.
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“I’ve never told Dame, or asked him, to stay. Nothing. I’ve never done that,” Billups said. “I felt like the biggest thing I wanted to do was share the things that were important to me. This is what I am. This is what I’m about.
“Then, it’s on him to decide: Is it worth it? Or should I punt?”
They had known each other long before Billups was introduced as coach on June 29. But now that Billups was no longer just the former NBA Finals MVP point guard, but also his coach, their conversations hit different. With each interaction, Lillard could feel himself gravitating toward Billups.
“Over time, the more we talked, the more we connected, just as people,” Lillard said. “It was like, I’m willing to go down in flames with him if that’s what it comes down to. We haven’t even been in one game together, but if that’s what it comes down to, I’m willing to go down with him. The same way I was willing to go down with (former coach) Terry (Stotts).”
As much as Lillard has recently tried to backtrack from his tumultuous summer by saying other people were putting words into his mouth, he acknowledged Friday that was indeed contemplating leaving Portland, even if he never publicly said it.
“Yeah, I was upset,” Lillard said. “We lost to a team (Denver) I thought we should beat. I wanted us to show we really want to win. But I never said, ‘Oh, I’m leaving.’ I said, ‘If that’s what it comes to — if this is not what our real focus is — then maybe I will be forced to say all right, it’s not going to work.’
“But I never said I was leaving. And I never said this is not where I want to be. I never said that.”
It wasn’t until Billups was hired, and the conversations between the coach and star began that Lillard’s thinking started to change. And not surprisingly, there was one topic that spurred the shift: What is inside a winner.
Lillard has long been enamored about the qualities that go into making a winning player, and a winning team. Last year, long before he was named to the United States Olympic team, Lillard sought out San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich and picked his brain about the qualities of his Spurs’ title teams, and the process they went through to achieve that success.
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So naturally, when Billups and Lillard began talking this summer, many of their early conversations were centered around winning, and what exactly goes into building a winner.
“Now, let’s face it: I’ve never coached,” Billups said. “So it’s not like Dame could look at my coaching acumen. But, me as a dude, what I believe in, what I know works on the floor, and the type of team you need to win it … all those things through our conversations, he found he feels the same way about it.”
But what really resonated with Lillard was what no coach could instill, what no scheme could prepare against, and what no amount of depth could counteract. It was when Billups talked about winners and what was inside them. The drive. The fury. The relentless pursuit.
He was speaking Lillard’s language. Winners know winners when they see one or hear one, and both knew they were looking at a winner.
“The mentality of a winner never changes. Never changes,” Billups said. “So you can talk about defense, you can talk about offense, and obviously we all do, but at the end of the day, spirit-wise, is the dude a winner, or is the dude a loser? Does the dude love to play the game because it gives him a great life? Or does he play the game because he has this insatiable desire to win and compete? Those things never change. So, sometimes we talked technical, and concepts, but a lot of those talks led to moments where it’s like … what’s in the dude?”
Lillard knew Billups had the resume of a winner by leading the Detroit Pistons to the 2004 NBA title, when Billups was named Finals MVP. And the more Lillard talked with him, he could tell Billups still possessed that competitive drive to win, that same fire that Lillard said kept him up at night for weeks this summer after the Blazers lost to Denver in the first round.
They not only saw the game the same, they had the same drive. That ultimately played a part in Lillard’s decision to return to Portland invested in the Blazers’ success.
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“He has been where I want to go,” Lillard said. “That’s where I landed at. It’s something new; we are going in a new direction. Let’s see if he has a remedy to this. Let’s see. I won’t be able to see that if I come half-hearted.”
He is here, in full, because he says “I wanted to be a part of Chauncey’s success; I’ll take pride in being part of his success as a coach.”
Their relationship, Lillard says, is deeper today than it ever was because of their communication. They stayed and talked long after a shootaround in San Francisco last week, and have had extended conversations before and after practices during training camp. Still, it was those pivotal five-or-six talks over the summer that changed everything.
“It was all organic,” Billups said. “It wasn’t me putting pressure, not me asking this or that. It was a lot about family, about life, and about life after hoop was done. It was more than basketball. We have a great connection, and those healthy conversations are the type that allow one to make a conscious decision.”
And judging from what Lillard said on Friday, that decision is final. He is in Portland. Today. Tomorrow. And beyond. Even if the Blazers get off to a poor start.
“I like our staff, I like Chauncey a lot and I love being a Trail Blazer,” Lillard said. “I love living in Portland. I love what I’ve built. And like I said on media day, I want to see it through. And a rocky start might be part of that, but that don’t mean I’m going to flip and do something different than what I’ve always done.”
So as the Trail Blazers’ season starts Wednesday at home against Sacramento, for the 10th consecutive season, No. 0 will be leading the way. Nobody is quite sure what to make of this edition of the Blazers, but Lillard knows for certain one storyline: No matter how good the Blazers are this season, he is not leaving Portland.
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“I don’t expect all times to be great times. Adversity is going to hit. There’s going to be some tough times,” Lillard said. “So if (this season) starts off rocky, or if it starts off in a struggle, I wouldn’t be happy about it. Nobody would. But I’m not going to jump ship or bail out when that happens. So, I mean, (him leaving Portland) is the easy thing and popular thing to say, but it’s not going to happen.”
(Photo: Abbie Parr / Getty Images)
