It’s fitting that Lillard would relish his individual success so modestly, because the way he developed his shooting stroke is equally modest.
The pure and pretty jumper that looks as effortless as it is accurate did not originate on a blacktop basketball court at a park or inside a neighborhood gym. Lillard perfected the art of his shot at his grandmother’s house in Oakland with the help of a tree and a curb.
As a boy, when he was 4 or 5, Lillard, his older brother Houston, and their gang of cousins would descend on Lillard’s grandmother’s house in the summer and take the place over. Lillard was too young to visit a nearby park, so he and his brother created their own pair of games outside the house.
It started with a 9-foot tree that used to rest in the front yard. The tree featured a unique branch that looped out of the trunk just so, forming a cylinder. In the eyes of Lillard and his brother, it was a perfect makeshift basketball hoop. They shot for hours, counting only the shots that swished without hitting the branch.
Then, when the duo got bored with that, they moved curb side.
“How I learned how to really shoot — with a rotation and everything — was when we played this game called curb,” Lillard said.
Lillard would hang out on one side of the street, Houston would hang on the other, and they would take turns launching shots back and forth. To score points, they had to fire a perfect shot that arced high into the air and landed on the curb, which was curved. If tossed just right, the ball would bounce in the air toward whoever threw it and count as 10 points. If it missed the curb and skipped away, it was worth zero points.
And what happened when cars rolled by? The boys heaved the ball even higher, over the cars, and if it hit the curb and bounced back, it was worth double the points. That textbook flick of the wrist that produces the pretty spin on the shots Lillard takes were honed during his repetitive motions during this game.
He played it from when he was a young boy to age 14, and still reminisces about it with his brother. Especially now that his NBA dreams have become a reality.
“There’s a Drake song where he says, ‘Started from the bottom, now we’re here,’” Lillard said, referring to the popular hip hop artist. “People always quote that song on social networks and stuff, and me and (Houston) always talk about it. It’s like, we really started from the bottom. We really did. That’s where it all started for me.”
