Trading away CJ McCollum last season signaled a changing of the guard for Damian Lillard the Portland Trail Blazers. It was a huge shakeup that felt necessary after several years of coming up short. But it was also made easier to stomach thanks to the emergence of rising star Anfernee Simons.
With the Blazers starting off 4-0, Simons has admirably taken up the mantle of being the secondary scoring threat alongside Lillard. The near-40 percent shooting clip leaves something to be desired, but having another 20-point scorer makes it as though McCollum never left.
Lillard, however, was vocal in a recent interview with Marc J. Spears of Andscape on what Simons still needs to pick up from his former running mate.
“It’ll be a different dynamic,” said Damian Lillard. “But I think one thing that he will need to take from CJ is that when we are out there, he has got to go get it the same way I’m going to go get it. He can’t be worried about stepping on my toes or, ‘Am I being too aggressive?’ And he has to go get it because that’s going to offset things as far as how teams deal with me. I’m going to get a lot of attention, but the more honest he can keep them and the more assertive and aggressive he is, it just makes my life that much easier.”
It's obviously much easier said than done for Anfernee Simons. One key difference is that Lillard and McCollum entered the league just one year apart, intersecting on the court nearly a decade ago. Both came in as 22-year-old rookies and were more peers than anything else.
Simons entered in 2018 as one of the youngest in the draft, which could pose a challenge to truly feeling like he needs to “get his” alongside a six-time All-Star like Dame.
But with the confidence level Simons has in himself as Dame continues to encourage him to stay aggressive, they could recreate the magic of the Blazers' past duo – and then some.
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