“At what point is Damian Lillard not in a slump and something to worry about?”: Zach Lowe shows concern over the Blazers star’s recent slump

6-time Portland Trail Blazers All-Star Damian Lillard has started the season with unusual scoring numbers on horrible efficiency.

Damian Lillard has been the face of the Portland Trailblazers in recent years. He has been averaging over 25 points for 6 seasons before the start of the 2021-22 season. He led the Trailblazers to the Western Conference Finals in the 2018-19 season.

However, the start of the 2021-22 season has raised questions over the superstar status of the former Rookie of the Year. In the first 9 games of the season, Lillard averaged a career-low of 18.5 points. He averaged more points as a rookie at 19 PPG.

The star guard is shooting 38% from the field and a shabby 30% from the 3-point line. In comparison to Dame’s previous years, this is a significant drop in his efficiency numbers. He averaged 29 points on 45% from the field and 39% from downtown in the season before.

Lillard from field this season:
Phoenix 6-of-11
At LAC 4-of-15
Memphis 6-of-22
LAC 9-of-17
At Char 5-of-20
At Phil 2-of-11 (first half)
That’s 33% FG. He’s 14-of-63 on 3-pointers (22.2%)

Don’t think I’ve ever seen such drastic and prolonged slump from him.

— Jason Quick (@jwquick) November 2, 2021

Also Read – “Terry Stotts got fired because Damian Lillard shot 0-6 from 3??”: Skip Bayless questions Blazers superstar’s ‘Dame Time’ following abysmal 2nd half shooting against Nuggets in Game 6

This is Lillard’s one of the worst eight-game stretches of his career, with only two others in 2015 and 2016 in which he posted a worse effective field goal percentage (eFG%) over that kind of span.

Zach Lowe discusses the curious case of Damian Lillard on his podcast.

In a recent episode of – ‘The Lowe Post’ Zach Lowe and Kevin O’Connor talk about the X-factors of the rest of the NBA season. In their conversation, Kevin talks about the slump of Dame. To which Zach responded with an instance of him discussing the same with an unnamed NBA agent.

“I was talking to an agent and asked the question – At what point is this not a slump and something to worry about?” The agent responded – “Now!” However, Dame sounds as confident as ever when questioned about the slump. According to Lillard himself, it doesn’t seem that there’s any urgency for Dame to make big changes.

With a leader like Damian Lillard, we’ll surely bounce back from this nasty losing streak 💪 pic.twitter.com/NfWTi7LM7T

— Blazers Nation (@BlazersNationCP) December 17, 2021

This was Damian Lillard’s full answer when asked if he sees getting out of his current shooting slump is a “challenge.” Pretty remarkable answer — and after talking about his struggles for 10-plus minutes before that, too. pic.twitter.com/WRW9JOPNSC

— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) November 2, 2021

“Usually when I shoot the ball poorly over a stretch, it’s loud when I come under that. I never know when that’s going to happen, but I just know myself and I know my history and I know the pattern of my game and my career. When I do start to see the ball go in consistently and make a good shot and make a tough one, I know what that looks like, everybody here knows what that looks like.”

Also Read – “Damian Lillard could be playing through injury”: Portland Trail Blazers beat writer conjectures about superstar PG’s health status following Dame’s unprecedented dip in production

There have been rumors of Dame playing through the season injured. However, the mystery remains if this is a slump, injury or he has just declined.