PORTLAND, Ore. — Portland Trail Blazers superstar point guard Damian Lillard is headed to the Milwaukee Bucks after a reported three-team trade on Wednesday. Lillard, arguably the best player in franchise history, will pair up with two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo with the Milwaukee Bucks, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported.
The Blazers' career leaderboards are plastered with Lillard's name. He's first in points, points per game, career 3-pointers, free throws, free-throw percentage — and if you care about advanced stats, offensive win shares and offense box plus/minus. Lillard is second in assists.
Lillard's value to the Blazers, the fans and this city always went far beyond his stats. It was his dedication to the city that drafted him. It was his work in the community. His leadership on and off the court. His lovely family.
Lillard gifted Blazers fans with so many incredible moments on the court, it's impossible to keep track of them all. But we did our best to narrow it down and come up with five of our favorite Damian Lillard moments in a Blazers uniform:
'That's a bad shot'
This is the one everyone will remember. Even non-Blazers fans will remember it. Your neighbor who hates sports? They've seen the highlight and admitted it was "kind of cool, I guess."
It was April 23, 2019, Game 5 of a first-round series against the Oklahoma City Thunder that Lillard dominated from start to finish. Going into Game 5, with the Blazers leading three games to one, he was averaging 28.8 points and making 44.4% of his 3-point attempts.
Lillard saved the best for the series clincher. Portland rallied from a 15-point deficit in the fourth quarter to tie it at 115-115 on a shot by Lillard with 33 seconds left. After a missed layup by Russell Westbrook, Al-Farouq Aminu grabbed the rebound and got the ball to Lillard, who crossed halfcourt. He stood there and dribbled and dribbled and dribbled and dribbled and dribbled.
It soon became clear that Lillard was going to shoot it — from there — to win the game. Thirty seven feet from the basket, Lillard launched a side-step 3-pointer over the outstretched arm of Paul George that swished through the net with 0.4 seconds left.
Pandemonium at Moda Center. Lillard waved goodbye to the Thunder. A dogpile of Blazers celebrated on the court.
After the game, George called Lillard's game winner a "bad shot."
Lillard's simple response: "Lol"
'Rip City!!!!'
This was Lillard's first great moment as a Blazer. He'd long since won over the Blazers faithful. It didn't take long. It probably happened in his NBA debut the season before, when he put up 23 points and 11 assists in a win against Kobe Bryant and the L.A. Lakers.
But it was May 2, 2014 when Lillard first cemented his status as a Blazers legend. It was Game 6 of a first-round series against the Houston Rockets. Portland, which led the series 3-2, hadn't advanced to the second round of the playoffs in 14 seasons.
With 0.9 seconds left, the Rockets went up by two on a reverse layup by Chandler Parsons. After a timeout, Lillard got free off a double-screen and sprinted from the far side of the court, clapping twice for the ball. He caught the inbounds pass from Nic Batum and nailed the game-winning 3-pointer over Parsons, sending the Blazers to the second round for the first time since the 2000 season.
After he hit the shot, Lillard strutted around the court, popping his jersey and yelling in jubilation to the raucous home crowd. After an on-court postgame interview, Lillard walked to the scorer's table, took the mic and endeared himself to Blazers fans for life when he yelled at the top of his lungs, "Rip City!!!!"
'Put some respect on my name'
The world was turned on its head when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. The NBA was no exception. The regular season was halted on March 11 due to the pandemic and didn't resume until July 30, with 22 teams returning to finish a truncated "regular-season" for playoff seeding purposes, followed by a full postseason at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.
The Blazers had some ground to make up to get in the playoffs. With a 29-37 record, Portland started 3.5 games out of eighth place in the Western Conference. All they did in the bubble was win six of eight games and then a play-in game against the Memphis Grizzlies to make the playoffs.
Lillard was unreal in the bubble. He was unanimously voted the MVP of the seeding games portion at Disney World, averaging 37.6 points, 9.6 assists and 4.3 rebounds while shooting 49.7% from the field, 43.6% from the 3-point line and 88.8% from the free-throw line.
Lillard scored 51, 61 and 42 points over the final three seeding games to carry the Blazers into the playoffs. No performance was as impressive as his 61-point effort in a 134-131 win against the Dallas Mavericks. Lillard hit 17 of 32 shots, including 9 for 17 from 3-point range.
The 61-point performance was Lillard's third 60-point game of the season. He joined Wilt Chamberlain as the only player in NBA history to have three or more 60-point games in a single season.
After the win, Lillard walked around the court and announced, twice, to anyone who would listen: "Put some respect on my f***ing name!"
'We wasted one of the best performances you'll ever see'
Those words — "It's a shame we wasted one of the best performances you'll ever see" — came from Lillard's teammate, CJ McCollum.
McCollum was right. No part of that shameful playoff loss to the Denver Nuggets was Lillard's fault. It was June 1, 2021. The series was tied 2-2 and the Blazers were in Denver for Game 5. The hope was to get a victory and a 3-2 lead, take it back to Portland and win the series at home in Game 6.
Lillard got the memo. He scored 55 points, including 12 3-pointers, and dished out 10 assists. It was the first 55-point, 10-assist game in NBA playoff history. Lillard hit a 3-pointer at the end of regulation to send the game to overtime. Then he hit a 3-pointer at the end of the first overtime to send it to double overtime. In the two overtime periods, Lillard hit six of eight shots and scored 17 of the Blazers' 19 points.
But Lillard's teammates let him down. They went 1 for 14 in the two overtimes. For the game, McCollum, Norman Powell and Carmelo Anthony combined to miss 32 of 47 shots, including 17 of 20 from 3-point range. Jusuf Nurkic had six turnovers and fouled out in 24 minutes. It was a near complete no-show from Lillard's teammates; other than Lillard, only Robert Covington played well in that game.
Despite one of the best individual performances in NBA playoff history, the Blazers lost 147-140 in double overtime. The team went on to lose Game 6 at home to drop a series they had no business losing.
Lillard was frustrated. For the first time in his career, the most loyal player in the NBA had doubts about his future in Portland, he later admitted. But he recommitted to the Blazers, got a new general manager and a bunch of new teammates and … well, we'll see what happens with the final chapter of Lillard's career.
Passing Drexler: 'It's a major accomplishment'
On Dec. 19, 2022, during a road game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Lillard hit a free throw for the 18,041st point of his career with the Blazers, passing Hall of Famer Clyde Drexler as Portland's all-time leading scorer, who had held the record for nearly 28 years.
The lone disappointment for Lillard was that he didn't set the record in front of fans back home in Portland. He didn't shy away from how much the record meant to him. For years, he said he wanted to be the best player to ever wear a Blazers uniform and it wasn't just lip service. He backed it up during his 11-year career in Portland his with his actions on and off the court.
"I want to be the guy where when they say who's the best to come through here, I want people to look and say it was Dame," he said in response to a question from Casey Holdahl of trailblazers.com. "Obviously scoring isn't everything, but when you start to get up in this types of numbers, that's a major thing. The fact that it's Clyde Drexler, anybody who knows the history of the NBA is going to respect and honor that. Being a part of one organization for this long and being able to sustain this level of success ... it's a major accomplishment."
Honorable mention
Lillard set the franchise individual game scoring record in his final season in Portland, dropping 71 points in a win against the Houston Rockets. He made 22 of 38 shots from the floor and hit on 13 of his 22 3-point attempts. He was also 14 for 14 from the foul line. He tied for the eight-most points scored in a game in NBA history.
Lillard, who was summoned for a random drug test by the NBA after the game, said he wasn't sure how to mark the occasion. "I think any hooper enjoys those moments when you're hot, you're in attack mode, you're feeling good," Lillard said. "But it's the stuff afterward that I struggle with, like when I walked off the court, was I supposed to be overly excited, or what?"
Even if Lillard didn't know how to react in the moment, the crowd at Moda Center did. On their feet, phones out to record the moment, Blazers fans serenaded Lillard with chants of "MVP! MVP!"
