“I’ve been in contact with him since I got drafted here, we would have conversations all the time,” said Lillard. “We ended up in the same place at the same time, he came and said what’s up. I got out my seat and we just moved to a different spot, talked for about 20, 25 minutes. Most of it was about him just being in a similar situation as me before, you know, with a team that’s rebuilding, him having a lot of responsibility. We talked about ‘Man it would have been crazy if I would have gotten to play with you’ and he said the same.”
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“He just said a lot of stuff about how I was real similar to him in a lot of ways,” said Lillard. “When he got to Portland, a lot of the stuff he did, it brought excitement. I think the city really embraced him, they liked who he was as a person along with what he did as a player, obviously. I think because I kind of came and did the same thing, did some of the same things he did, I think he respects that… He was well respected, people appreciated the kind of person he was and he got it done on the floor. I think I can say the same for myself.”