We live in an era of the NBA in which players rarely play out their entire careers for one organization. Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard is looking to buck that trend and has publicly announced he would like to play for the Blazers throughout the rest of his career.
The announcement has come at an interesting time, immediately after an offseason in which two stars in DeMar DeRozan and Kawhi Leonard were swapped for each other. Both players had only played for one time throughout their careers.
The Blazers had an interesting season in 2017-18, making the third seed in the Western Conference but getting absolutely destroyed by Anthony Davis and the New Orleans Pelicans, who swept them in the opening round.
Because of all these, trade rumors have arisen in Portland. Some began to wonder if a team led by Lillard and C.J. McCollum had reached their ceiling, and the team should be torn down and built anew.
After Lillard's words, it looks like he is not ready to give up on the Blazers quite yet. But Celtics legend Paul Pierce had some doubts on the legitimacy of his statements and voiced his opinion in an episode of ESPN's The Jump.
“There’s going to be a lot of factors, especially with a guard, because now you’re talking about ‘am I going to be a lifetime Blazer if they give me $100m-plus or $200m?’. It all matters about who values you the most, especially as a guard. Kevin [Garnett] was a big man so he was going to get paid wherever he went. If they feel as though they can’t move forward with Damian Lillard then I don’t know if they would re-sign him for that big contract. Of course he’s going to say all the right things because he has a pay cheque coming up pretty soon. He would definitely love being a Blazer if he made $200million.”
It seems that Pierce thinks Lillard is more motivated by a paycheck than a chance at a championship. This is a pretty serious accusation and a dig at Lillard's character. The young guard will most definitely respond to these allegations at some point, and we will see how he defends himself against the legend.
Follow Us
Subscribe