Ghosts of Damian Lillard Era Still Lingering for Trail Blazers
Nearly 18 months after moving on from the franchise's all-time leading scorer, the Blazers still haven't fully turned the page.
📍PORTLAND, Ore. — The second round of the annual Damian Lillard Homecoming Affair was not nearly as much of an event as last year’s edition.
Lillard did, of course, get the loudest cheers anyone has gotten at a Trail Blazers home game this season when the Milwaukee Bucks starters were introduced, as the franchise’s all-time leading scorer will continue to until his playing days are over. But all the trappings of this kind of game as a Major Event were absent. No tribute video, no special pregame press conference, no influx of national media parachuting in. Once everybody involved—Lillard, his former team, his current teammates, fans—has gone through the pageantry once, the sequel becomes just another game.
And almost exactly a year after the first time Lillard stepped on the Moda Center court as a visiting player, things are more or less the same with both teams as they were then.