Damian Lillard would rather ‘lose every year’ than join Warriors originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Damian Lillard wants out of Portland, but that doesn’t mean he’ll return home to the Bay and join the Warriors.
In fact, the Trail Blazers star said he’d rather lose every season before teaming up with Steph Curry in Golden State.
“I respect what they’ve been doing over the last eight, nine years or whatever, and I’m from there obviously. That’s home. But I can’t go be a part of that,” Lillard said on a recent “It Is What It Is” episode. “They won four championships. What I look like going to try to do that?
“There’s somebody that plays my position that’s, behind LeBron [James], the best player of this era. So it don’t even make sense. I’d never do nothing like that. I’d lose every year before I go.”
Lillard repeatedly has said he wants to contend for a championship, and after spending all of his 11 NBA seasons in Portland, he realized he would need to be elsewhere for that to happen. The seven-time All-Star officially requested a trade this summer, and stated that the Miami Heat were his preferred destination.
Back in July, ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne reported that Lillard would have welcomed a Bay Area homecoming before the Warriors traded for veteran point guard Chris Paul.
“[The Warriors] had another choice. They could have waited for Dame,” Shelburne told 95.7 The Game’s Mark Willard and Dan Dibley on Wednesday. “Dame is from the Bay Area. I know he was interested.
“If he got to the point where he was going to ask for a trade and the list was given [to the organization], the Warriors initially would have been on that list. But now it’s not possible because of the move they made [trading for Chris Paul].”
Lillard was born and raised in Oakland, Calif. and went to two East Bay high schools before ultimately playing at Oakland High School, where he was First Team All-League during his junior and senior years.
While he grew up watching the Warriors, the 33-year-old refuses to play for his hometown team.
Since Lillard entered the league in 2012, Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and the Warriors…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/damian-lillard-rather-lose-every-172957587.html?src=rss
Author : NBC Sports BayArea
Publish date : 2023-09-19 17:29:57
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