Only 10 players who were part of the NBA 75th Anniversary Team are currently active in the league. And Portland Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard is one of those legends. Its a milestone that not many can boast of having reached. Lillard, however, continues to face criticism for not winning on the league’s biggest stage. The nine-time All-Star has been on a few extremely talented teams. But one major change in his first few seasons with the Portland Trail Blazers impacted a clear championship opportunity.
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Despite being the sixth overall pick in the 2012 NBA Draft, the Portland Trail Blazers didn’t expect Damian Lillard to be as good as he was. The 6-foot-2 guard was in the same draft class as Anthony Davis, yet still won the 2012-13 Rookie of the Year award.
In Lillard’s sophomore season, the team soared to a 54-28 record. The combination of Lillard’s ascension and LaMarcus Aldridge’s stardom proved to be a game changer . The two led the Trail Blazers to an infamous first-round victory over the Houston Rockets.
It was clear they weren’t a championship contender, but their journey to get there didn’t seem so far anymore. The main goal on Portland’s bucket list was ensuring Aldridge signed a contract extension, it was due to expire post the 2014-15 season.
Surprisingly, Aldridge didn’t sign an extension before the start of the season. Lillard didn’t pay much attention to it, but in hindsight, that was the moment that changed the team’s trajectory forever.
“When it came time for free agency, they were like, ‘We got some meetings, we’re going to meet with LA. Is your relationship salvageable?'” Lillard said on License to Lillard. “I was like, ‘Salvageable? What are you talking about? Me and him never had an argument.”
Lillard believed that the two were in great standing with each other, but he would soon discover something shocking. At the time, Lillard was just 24 years old. He didn’t pay much attention to the politics within the NBA, specifically within the team itself.
He was oblivious to the outside noise surrounding Aldridge and himself. After hearing from team officials that something may be wrong between the two stars, he immediately called Aldridge to get behind the situation himself.
“I call LA, ‘We’re supposed to be coming to meet you. Why are they asking me this?’ He’s like, ‘Man, I’m hearing that people saying it’s your team, and they’re telling me it’s my team. I don’t know who’s saying what, so you know, it’s too late now,'” Lillard revealed.
If Lillard had any inkling that Aldridge was feeling this way, he would’ve made an effort to sort things out. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be and shortly after, Aldridge signed with the San Antonio Spurs.
Lillard looks back at that key loss as the domino which prevented the Trail Blazers from winning an NBA championship.
“I felt like in the next one or two years, we would have won it,” Lillard proclaimed. “Now, a year more experienced and a year better, we would have been even better.”
Those Trail Blazers teams in Lillard’s second and third seasons were quite strong. Nicholas Batum, Wesley Matthews and Robin Lopez comprised the remaining slots in the starting lineup. It’s also worth noting that during the 2015 NBA playoffs, CJ McCollum began to come into his own.
Portland could’ve made some noise in the Western Conference but all of that is hypotheticals now. At least, Lillard and Aldridge were able to mend things between them on a personal level.
