{"id":23388,"date":"2024-02-01T22:45:23","date_gmt":"2024-02-01T19:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/23388\/damian-lillard-returns-to-portland\/"},"modified":"2024-02-01T22:45:28","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T19:45:28","slug":"damian-lillard-returns-to-portland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/?p=23388","title":{"rendered":"Damian Lillard returns to Portland, where he still sees a future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Damian Lillard returns to Portland, where he still sees a future\u060c<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"article-meta\">\n<ul class=\"authors\">\n<li class=\"mugshot-shown\">\n<div class=\"author-img\"><\/div>\n<p>Jamal Collier, ESPN<span class=\"timestamp \">February 1, 2024, 03:16<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>PORTLAND, Ore. \u2014 As Damian Lillard walked into Portland&#39;s Moda Center Wednesday night for the first time as a member of the Milwaukee Bucks, he instinctively headed toward his home locker room.<\/p>\n<p>It&#39;s the same path he took for 11 years as a member of the Trail Blazers, and he later said he still doesn&#39;t feel like a returning visitor to this city.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI really didn\u2019t know where to go,\u201d Lillard said in a pregame press conference.  \u201cI\u2019ve never been in the visitors\u2019 locker room until today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wednesday marked Lillard&#39;s first game in Portland since being traded to Milwaukee in October.  He was greeted with a minute-long standing ovation when his name was announced during the pregame introductions.  The Blazers did their part to spoil the homecoming, however, clinging to a 119-116 victory over the Bucks, as Lillard finished with 25 points, 6 rebounds and 7 assists.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline editorial float-r\" data-behavior=\"article_related\">\n<h2 class=\"editorial-title\">Editor&#39;s Choice<\/h2>\n<p>2 Related<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>While Lillard emphasized his commitment to the Bucks, he also left the door open for a potential return to the franchise that drafted him before the end of his career.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause of how I feel about Portland,\u201d Lillard said.  \u201cHow I feel about the organization here and the time I spent here, in my mind I always thought that was how my career would end.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Right now, I&#39;m just in a space like, this is where I am now. I&#39;m in Milwaukee. I wanted the opportunity to compete, and our team has the opportunity to compete for this year and years to come, and I&#39;m just living in it. But definitely, when I got traded, I see a day where I&#39;ll wear a Trail Blazer uniform again before I&#39;m done.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Lillard arrived in Portland before the Bucks after Monday&#39;s game.  He still has family here and said he can&#39;t wait to sleep in his own bed and have a birthday party for his twins, Kali and Kalii.<\/p>\n<p>The Blazers, who drafted Lillard with the No. 6 pick in 2012, welcomed him back with two first-quarter tribute videos \u2014 one highlighting his on-court accomplishments and iconic moments, the other his impact off the field and in Portland.  community.  A child in the crowd held up a sign that read, \u201cTake your ring then come home!\u201d  \u00bb<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe just feel appreciation and love,\u201d Lillard said after the game.  &#8220;I just stood in there. It was like, <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/tag\/man\/\"   title=\"man\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">man<\/a>, this is a big deal. Just take this moment and have everyone in the building show me this type of love, of appreciation for a lot of things during my stay here&#8230; So, I enjoyed it.<\/p>\n<p>Lillard received a call from Pelicans guard CJ McCollum, another former Blazer, as he was about to shoot Wednesday morning, telling him to embrace the emotions of the night.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy feelings about playing here, my feelings about doing my best for the organization while I was here, it was genuine,\u201d Lillard said before the game.  &#8220;It took a lot out of me, so I&#39;m sure it&#39;s going to be a lot of emotions. Just being back out there and seeing the familiar faces. There&#39;s a lot of people in the crowd, I&#39;m going to recognize those faces because I have seen them many times, so many years.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So I&#39;m going to leave things as they are. I&#39;m not going to cry, none of that. I&#39;m not a big cryer, but I&#39;m not going to hide the emotions that I feel about it. I think so.&#8221; is a moment that means a lot to me and to many other people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pull-quote\"><p>&#8220;Right now, I&#39;m just in a space like, this is where I am now. I&#39;m in Milwaukee. I wanted the opportunity to compete and our team has the opportunity to compete for this year and the years to come and I&#39;m just living in there.  But when I was traded, I see a day when I&#39;ll wear a Trail Blazer uniform again before I&#39;m done.  &#8221;<\/p>\n<p><cite><\/p>\n<div class=\"img-container headshot\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyload\" data-lazyload=\"true\" src=\"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Damian-Lillard-returns-to-Portland-where-he-still-sees-a.png&#038;w=65&#038;h=90&#038;scale=crop&#038;background=0xcccccc&#038;transparent=false.png\"\/><\/div>\n<p>Damien Lillard<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Lillard actually requested a trade from Portland earlier this summer, which he acknowledges led to conflicts between him and the organization before his departure.  He said he still hasn&#39;t spoken to Blazers general manager Joe Cronin since the trade.<\/p>\n<p>But Lillard said he still keeps an eye on the Blazers, primarily looking after guard Anfernee Simons, who he considers a brother.<\/p>\n<p>However, Lillard didn&#39;t look to this game for any sort of closure or catharsis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of the things I\u2019ve experienced here, I know it will always be a part of me,\u201d Lillard said.  \u201cIt will always be a part of me because everything I said, how I felt about my time, I meant it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Damian Lillard returns to Portland, where he still sees a future\u060c Jamal Collier, ESPNFebruary 1, 2024, 03:16 PORTLAND, Ore. \u2014 As Damian Lillard walked into Portland&#39;s Moda Center Wednesday night for the first time as a member of the Milwaukee Bucks, he instinctively headed toward his home locker room. It&#39;s the same path he took [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23389,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1756,53,1757,10102,1725,349],"class_list":["post-23388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","tag-damian","tag-future","tag-lillard","tag-portland","tag-returns","tag-sees"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23388"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23390,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23388\/revisions\/23390"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}