Jason Quick has a good article on Dame in The Athletic this morning. It basically makes the point that Dame is too beat up right now to be the lethal player we all know and love:
“But what’s different from any other time during the Lillard era is this: At the core of the Blazers’ concerns is Lillard. He is not the Damian Lillard who has so often rescued this team and carried it to the finish line. He is no longer the feared late-game assassin, whose pressure-packed daggers author magical moments. He is not that player because his body — less than three months shy of his 31st birthday — is too banged up in too many areas.
It started when he fell on a ball in January against Oklahoma City, triggering an abdominal issue. Then, in a February game in New York, his right knee went knee-to-knee with a Knicks player. Five games later, in Oklahoma City, he banged his left knee. And ever since, it’s been nagging injury after nagging injury — a bruised right hand after Steven Adams swiped down at him on March 18, another knee-to-knee on March 21 against Dallas, and yet again a knee-to-knee March 25 against Miami. Then there was another knee collision against the Clippers on April 20.”
Dame needs to sit for a couple of weeks and heal up, but he won’t have it. He says he can play and the team needs him. The team needs him alright, but they need him at as close to full strength as possible. The Blazers have lost close game after close game and in none of them has Dame Time materialized. No doubt in my mind that a healthy Dame makes four or five of the recent losses W’s. Stotts needs to sit his ass and let the rest of the team carry the load for awhile.
I’d like to see Stotts go with a starting unit of CJ, Norm, RoCo, Melo and Nurk. The bench should be Ant, Little, DJ, Giles and Kanter. At no time should Kanter and Melo be on the court together.
