Interview with Lillard

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Basketball Insiders: I know Blazers fans were thrilled when you signed that deal. If all goes as planned, can you see yourself finishing your career in Portland?

Damian Lillard: “Definitely. I mean, I love it here. I love living here. I love the people here. This is just my kind of place. After growing up where I grew up, you just want to be in a nice, peaceful place. You want to be somewhere where people respect you and somewhere that you have built something. And I feel like I’ve built something great in my first three years here and I will continue to build on it. I consider this a second home. As long as they’ll have me, I’ll be here.”
 
Basketball Insiders: Let’s talk about your rapping. First of all, you are ridiculously talented. Are you putting out an album and is there a timetable for that to drop?

Damian Lillard: “Well, I plan on putting out a short album. I want to do it way before the season is even creeping up on us; I want to get something done early. But it’s already done. If I do put something out, it’s not something that I need to do now, it’s already done. I recorded a lot stuff. But the crazy thing is, I don’t spent a lot of time doing it. I have things that I do. I work out twice a day, I get my lift in, I hang out with my family and I’ve just been relaxing a lot. But some nights, I decide to go the studio and do some music just to give myself some balance, to put my mind in a different place and kind of put my emotions out there a little bit. I don’t spend a lot of time doing it, so it’s been kind of funny to see people like, ‘Oh he better get in the gym!’
 
Basketball Insiders: I hate people who say stuff like that, like you guys are supposed to live in the gym.

Damian Lillard: “This is how I can break that down to you. So, they want us as professionals to be humble, right? They like for us to be humble and not act like we’re this and that, but at the same time you need to treat us like a normal person. Put it like this, for my mom growing up, she had two jobs. You praise the average person for working two jobs. But the fact that I have like a second career, possibly, people want to say just focus on [basketball]. So it’s kind of like you’re automatically making me not a normal person. You’re almost, in a way, taking my normalcy away by saying just focus on one thing, when you praise the average person for having a second job. That just doesn’t make sense!
 
Fonzthecpt1 said:
SlyPlagiarizerDog

Also Dame is going to be 20x the leader Aldridge "was".
Click to expand...

LOL, I didn't plagiarize a thing, just posted a few of the questions and answers I liked the best because some on here won't click the link and read the interview.
 
SlyPokerDog said:
LOL, I didn't plagiarize a thing, just posted a few of the questions and answers I liked the best because some on here won't click the link and read the interview.
Click to expand...
You are stealing clicks away from their website!!!!!!:smiley-195517897341
 
I didn't click the link, the only chance I would was when he posted the excerpts.
 
I really liked this:

Basketball Insiders: You signed a five-year extension with Portland this summer – congratulations, by the way. Lately, a lot of players have been signing shorter deals so that they can hit free agency again sooner. Why did you want to lock in the longest deal possible with the Blazers?

Damian Lillard: “First of all, as much as you want to have the greatest financial situation possible, I don’t play the game for money. I’m not trying to have a plan like, ‘Oh, I can make this much money and I can do this and this.’ I know right now I qualified for what I signed for and I know that I’m playing where I want to be playing at, and I know that the team I’m playing for wants me here. I think both sides just committed to another. It wasn’t about free agency and all those things like that. I don’t play that game.”
 
I thought it was interesting that Dame mentioned being excited to play with Ed Davis and Mo Harkless....didn't see that coming! They were the only 2 new guys he brought up.
 
Damian Lillard: “This is how I can break that down to you. So, they want us as professionals to be humble, right? They like for us to be humble and not act like we’re this and that, but at the same time you need to treat us like a normal person. Put it like this, for my mom growing up, she had two jobs. You praise the average person for working two jobs. But the fact that I have like a second career, possibly, people want to say just focus on [basketball]. So it’s kind of like you’re automatically making me not a normal person. You’re almost, in a way, taking my normalcy away by saying just focus on one thing, when you praise the average person for having a second job. That just doesn’t make sense!
Click to expand...

It's sort of an interesting point on the surface, but it doesn't hold up particularly well to scrutiny.

The vast majority of people who work multiple jobs do so because they can't make ends meet otherwise. And they're usually of the unskilled variety, where performance hardly matters. You have to be really, really bad to be let go, and there isn't much room for advancement even if you apply yourself.

A pro athlete like Lillard is compensated very well and doesn't need a second source of income, and his job is all about measurable performance and doing the most possible with his talents. Nice try, but...

"That just doesn't make sense!"
 
handiman said:
It's sort of an interesting point on the surface, but it doesn't hold up particularly well to scrutiny.

The vast majority of people who work multiple jobs do so because they can't make ends meet otherwise. And they're usually of the unskilled variety, where performance hardly matters. You have to be really, really bad to be let go, and there isn't much room for advancement even if you apply yourself.

A pro athlete like Lillard is compensated very well and doesn't need a second source of income, and his job is all about measurable performance and doing the most possible with his talents. Nice try, but...

"That just doesn't make sense!"
Click to expand...
You're taking his comparison far too literally. The POINT is that he's a person just like everyone else on the planet - why shouldn't he be able to have multiple interests like everybody else just because he's paid well? It makes perfect sense.
 
handiman said:
It's sort of an interesting point on the surface, but it doesn't hold up particularly well to scrutiny.

The vast majority of people who work multiple jobs do so because they can't make ends meet otherwise. And they're usually of the unskilled variety, where performance hardly matters. You have to be really, really bad to be let go, and there isn't much room for advancement even if you apply yourself.

A pro athlete like Lillard is compensated very well and doesn't need a second source of income, and his job is all about measurable performance and doing the most possible with his talents. Nice try, but...

"That just doesn't make sense!"
Click to expand...

I thought that too. the one flaw in his thinking. When you are good enough to be the best at something, you shouldn't split yourself up. Dame doesn't need a second sport or rapping to make money and so it holds no cred to his comparison. With that said, I think he should rap all he wants. to have a hobby is usually a great thing for the mind and body.
 
blue9 said:
You're taking his comparison far too literally. The POINT is that he's a person just like everyone else on the planet - why shouldn't he be able to have multiple interests like everybody else just because he's paid well? It makes perfect sense.
Click to expand...

So, he was speaking metaphorically? Uh-huh. I don't mind him having multiple interests, but I'd rather see him practicing his defensive stance than spend fleeting seconds justifying them with B.S. examples. He could have just said he's got free time in the day and left it at that. He tried to appeal to our "normalcy" sympathies instead. Some of you suckers fell for it, apparently.

Furthermore, we don't praise two-jobbers for spreading themselves thin. We praise them for their work ethic to keep the family afloat. Lillard really has it backward with that example.
 
handiman said:
So, he was speaking metaphorically? Uh-huh. I don't mind him having multiple interests, but I'd rather see him practicing his defensive stance than spend fleeting seconds justifying them with B.S. examples. He could have just said he's got free time in the day and left it at that. He tried to appeal to our "normalcy" sympathies instead. Some of you suckers fell for it, apparently.

Furthermore, we don't praise two-jobbers for spreading themselves thin. We praise them for their work ethic to keep the family afloat. Lillard really has it backward with that example.
Click to expand...

You are completely missing the point.

Actually you intentionally missed the point with your "I'd rather see him practicing defense" crack.
 
and all this time I thought his passion off court was drinking like a fish?
 
"I consider this a second home" Geez! I guess he still prefers Oakland. The other thing I noticed was, he seems to think it is all on him now. Not a word about his team mates, especially the best shooter on the team. Dang! This may be a very long season.
 
blue9 said:
You're taking his comparison far too literally. The POINT is that he's a person just like everyone else on the planet - why shouldn't he be able to have multiple interests like everybody else just because he's paid well? It makes perfect sense.
Click to expand...
Because IF the second and third interests negatively impact his effectiveness in the interest for which he is paid millions upon millions of dollars, then he needs to drop those interests and focus on what's making him insanely wealthy.

Personally, I don't think there is a negative impact, but it's a valid concern...
 
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