Damian Lillard was back in Portland this past week. If you aren't familiar with him, let me fill you in.
He had played his whole career for my beloved Portland Trailblazers. The Trailblazers are considered a small market team, thus not able to attract a lot of big-name players. He was the NBA Rookie of the Year a decade ago. He has made several clutch shots to win important games in moments - occasions that have come to be known as "Dame Time". He scored 71 points in a game last year, which is one of the highest totals ever. By the time he's through, he'll be one of the all-time leading scorers.
However, Portland is in a rebuilding period, with players that are young and may be great at some point, but they aren't yet. Dame asked to be traded to a team that has a chance of winning a championship in the near future. That makes sense, but the city was devastated to see him go..
This week he was back with his new team, Milwaukee, for the first time. When they came out just to warm up, he got a standing ovation. When he was introduced at the start there was a several minute standing ovation.
That alone made for a great night, but even better is Portland beat Milwaukee that night. Milwaukee has twice as many wins, and may win a championship this year. The whole game I figured it would come down to the end and he would do to us what he did to so many other teams. We had a two point lead and Lilllard had the ball with five seconds to go, but we guarded him well and he had to pass it off. No Dame Time this night.
He said he's open to coming back some day. Hopefully so.
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