Damian Lillard has the entirety he wishes to win a championship, or no less than severely contend for one, with the Milwaukee Bucks. He has an MVP wingman. He has the defensive duvet he calls for. Lillard is an elite pick-and-roll initiator who now has an elite pick-and-roll finisher (in Giannis Antetokounmpo) and a phenomenal big-man popper (in Brook Lopez) at his disposal. He’ll experience comfy ground spacing and the enjoyable fact of no longer having to lift the heaviest scoring burden each and every evening.
All of because of this, for the primary actual time in his occupation, Lillard is going to have to earn his superstar stripes. The built-in excuses he had in Portland, and the uniquely forgiving good thing about the doubt they long afforded him, are long past. If the Bucks bow out in the second one spherical, a Dame discussion not like any now we have ever had will start in earnest.
I’m no longer pronouncing it is proper, but that is simply the way it works. In Portland, the group, the GM, the trainer, everybody but Lillard used to be blamed for postseason shortcomings sooner or later. It used to be by no means Dame’s fault. Not even Trae Young, coming into simply his 6th season, will get that more or less grace. He’s already getting the “all-stats-no-substance” label in spite of having been to as many convention finals as Lillard in 1/2 the occupation span.
If Young is not as impactful an offensive participant as Lillard, he is beautiful rattling shut. The drawback is protection, and it is the identical drawback with Lillard. At least a part of the explanation the ones Blazers groups had been by no means in a position to compete for a identify used to be as a result of they could not protect, but as a substitute of maintaining Lillard responsible to a two-way usual, the narrative used to be at all times about how the Blazers did not assist him sufficient.
Well, now he has the entire assist he may ever ask for in Milwaukee. But he will nonetheless have to protect in some way he by no means has. I do not care how a lot dimension you have got in the paint, you do not win titles with a defensive doormat on the level of assault. The playoffs are in large part about searching probably the most prone defenders and exploiting them. Dame is going to be hunted. You can wager on that.
He’s going to get remoted in area and run via a maze of off-ball routes. He could have to be up to the duty of answering those demanding situations in the warmth of deep-playoff basketball with actual championship stakes at the line. If the Blazers were given to even the second one spherical, it used to be space cash. That’s when the Bucks’ season will get started.
I say all this as an enormous Lillard fan. How may you no longer be? The man is an electrical basketball participant, the one participant in the league with as a lot must-see cache as Stephen Curry when he will get on a heater. But there is not any denying the honeymoon he used to be on in Portland. You can name it a grind to stick it out together with your unique workforce, but there is a protection internet in taking part in freed from expectancies. You win, even at a reliable degree, you are a hero. You lose, and any individual else takes the autumn.
But what if, and I’m simply making dialog right here, Lillard turns into the autumn man with the Bucks? That’s a chance. Let’s consider a Bucks-Celtics convention finals in which the Bucks, as a result of they traded Jrue Holiday to get Lillard, should not have somebody to guard Jayson Tatum, and Lillard finally ends up getting switched onto scorers proper and left and will get torched.
Meanwhile, the Celtics, in finishing up with Holiday, have the most efficient on-ball defender in the league and a real Dame defender. They can transfer completely the entirety. In this situation, shall we say the half-court juice that Lillard provides Milwaukee runs up towards a wall, and the defensive lack of Holiday is in fact what proves to be their undoing?
Dame sought after to play for championships — and that is what comes with that. You put your chips in the center, and in doing so, open your self up to actual loss. Lillard with the Bucks is a terrifying offensive prospect, and no longer subject the way it works out, Lillard is a superstar. There’s no query about that. But there are tiers to the superstar pyramid, and presently Dame is not at the most sensible one. Perhaps it is because he is by no means had a practical probability to stand at the grandest phases. Perhaps he is a part of the cause of that.
Either manner, those offense-only superstars aren’t, in normal, what they are cracked up to be. There’s a reason why that no one needs Kyrie Irving, and it isn’t simply because he is an enormous headache. It’s the similar reason why no one needs to business for James Harden. The identical reason why Trae Young is taking warmth. The identical reason why Jalen Brunson almost certainly cannot be the most efficient participant on a identify workforce. Defense issues. Ironically, in a league this is perceived as a no-defense 3-point contest, it in fact issues now possibly greater than ever.
There are principally 3 ways to be a disproportionately offense-centric superstar and win or no less than in reality compete for identify. The first is that if your title is Stephen Curry, and Curry, for the document, is a a lot better defender that Lillard. The 2nd is in the event you play with LeBron James. (Hello, Kyrie.) The 3rd is when you have the very best supplement of teammates to duvet for you. This used to be the case with Harden in Houston when the Rockets had the Warriors down 3-2 in 2018 and had been a valid identify workforce with an oppressive switching protection.
Lillard is taking part in the 3rd card. He’s no longer Steph. He does not have LeBron. But what he does have is 2 of the most efficient defenders in the league in Antetokounmpo and Lopez backing him up. But he is nonetheless going to have to pull his weight. If he does, it is going to be vindication. If he does not, the national-coverage honeymoon might be over.