Damian Lillard has long been vocal about his loyalty to the Portland Trail Blazers and has even expressed his desire to be a Blazer for life. In a recent interview with Jason Quick of The Athletic, Lillard spoke out on super teams and said that he'd rather be on a team built on continuity rather than talent.

“When you look around the league, you just see the talent. Teams are stacking up on talent,” Lillard said. “You see a lot of guys teaming up and guys wanting to be on the same team. When you want to compete with that — like on a championship level — you gotta try to fight that with firepower. For us, I think our chemistry, our style of play, and the coaching we have — that’s a big thing for us. So like, we lean on that. We’ve been successful with it. But when you talk about a championship level, it’s tough to compete with those ultra-talented teams — Golden State, Oklahoma City, teams that just have player after player after player.

“So you don’t want to go into the trade deadline just doing stuff to do it, then you break up something that was working for you,” Lillard said. “So I think you are almost better off taking your chances with ‘Let’s see if togetherness if going to beat the talent at some point.”’

On paper, Damian Lillard and the Blazers certainly aren't the talent-heavy team that the Golden State Warriors, Boston Celtics, or Houston Rockets are. They have two major pieces in Lillard and CJ McCollum carrying most of the offensive load.

But despite the seemingly underwhelming roster, Portland has continued to surprise teams and be consistently good in the regular season.

So far, however, that has been the problem for the Blazers. While they have been a good regular season team over the past few years, this has not carried over into the post-season, where it really matters.

Last year, Damian Lillard and the Blazers were on fire to end the regular season, capturing the third seed in the Western Conference. They seemed poised for a solid playoff push and a second-round appearance at the very least. However, they fell really flat in the first round and got swept by the Anthony Davis-led New Orleans Pelicans, despite having home court advantage.

After these comments from Dame, the expectations may once again rise for Portland, as they are currently at fourth in the West. But the barometer for this team no longer lies in the regular season. They've proven they can hang around over the 82-game marathon.

The true test for this team, a team built on “togetherness” as Lillard said, is if they can make a deep run in the postseason and knock off one or two of those teams built on talent.