Portland Trail Blazers point guard Damian Lillard subjected himself to trolling during some comments he made to open the team's Media Week on Tuesday.
Lillard said he would not play for Team USA in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics in the event Portland made it all the way to the NBA Finals:
https://twitter.com/highkin/status/1333852341393518593
The comment predictably resulted in a slew of jokes regarding Dame missing the Finals and inevitably heading to the Olympics:
https://twitter.com/lakesho62837873/status/1333858213142249472
See you at the olympics dame
— Wayne (@wayne_6211) December 1, 2020
Only, one of the jokes came from a rather interesting commentator.
Ben DuBose, editor of USA TODAY's Rockets Wire, replied to NBA Central's aggregation of Damian Lillard's comments in a now-deleted tweet:




Dame was alerted to the situation and naturally did some dunking of his own:
Ima let big head dude slide because he didn’t know the question I was asked clearly. https://t.co/l3KRiETh0Q
— Damian Lillard (@Dame_Lillard) December 1, 2020
So who holds y’all accountable when y’all just say shit without doin your homework? Lol https://t.co/Uqq1lmu9cy
— Damian Lillard (@Dame_Lillard) December 1, 2020
Lillard has never had a problem taking people to task on social media.
The former Rookie of the Year engages with fans quite often, and he also humorously set NBA Twitter on fire by roasting Patrick Beverley and Paul George after the Denver Nuggets overcame a 3-1 deficit to eliminate the Los Angeles Clippers from the playoffs.
It was clearly a misstep on DuBose's part, especially considering Dame was referring to the Olympics starting just one day after the possible conclusion of the 2021 NBA Finals. DuBose did apologize for not looking more into the context of Lillard's original quote and took the dunking in stride.
Regardless, Damian Lillard has unwavering confidence in his himself and the capabilities of his team. The Western Conference will be a dogfight this season. But the reloaded Trail Blazers are hoping offseason additions will lead to an NBA Finals appearance, with Lillard at the helm.