If one thing became clear over the past week, it’s that Blazers star point guard Damian Lillard isn’t accustomed to any sort of backlash by Portland fans, and now that he has finally gotten some, he didn’t particularly seem to care for it.
The backlash came hot and heavy through social media over the hire of Chauncey Billups as the team’s head coach, which Blazers fans chose to attack Lillard about for whatever reason.
That, then, led to a report from Yahoo! Sports’ Chris Haynes about Lillard potentially getting pushed out of Portland due to fan backlash, as well as their potential inability to build a contender around him:
The enormous backlash from the Portland Trail Blazers’ process to hire a new coach and his concerns on whether a championship contender can be built have become factors that may push the franchise player — Damian Lillard — out the door, league sources told Yahoo Sports. Lillard has remained loyal to Portland in large due to the tremendous fan base. But over the last few days, he’s seen some of those same fans attacking him on social media for a pending coaching hire he played no part in consummating, sources said. Portland is currently in negotiations to make Los Angeles Clippers assistant coach Chauncey Billups its next head coach.
Windhorst somewhat cooled things off in his latest podcast, where he basically said he doesn’t see anything imminent regarding Lillard potentially demanding a trade:
Brian Windhorst: I don’t think Chauncey is going to go into this worried that Damian is getting closer to the edge and and wants out. I know that it’s very tempting to run to the trade machine and start to do Damian trades. But while I definitely see storm clouds over there, I’m not ready to say based on my conversations, I’m not ready to say that that’s where it’s at.
Lillard has always seemed unquestionably loyal to Portland and it’d be shocking to see that change now, but at the same time, the six-time All-Star will turn 31 in a couple of weeks and the Blazers don’t look any closer to contending than they did three years ago.
Maybe Lillard sees his window to compete for a title as a team’s top player starting to close a bit and is using fan backlash as an excuse for a potential trade request down the line?
Impossible to know, but we should get more clarity on this situation by the offseason when the Blazers will get their chance to prove to Lillard if they can build an elite team around his absurd talents.
For the latest on the Damian Lillard trade front, click here.
