Damian Lillard, who handled All-Star slight with class, faced uphill battle from the start: How timing, votin – OregonLive

Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard sat at home Thursday feeding his three children when the texts and calls started pouring in, informing him that he hadn’t been selected as a Western Conference starter in the NBA All-Star Game.

While that news sent many Blazers fans and some media members into a tizzy, Lillard said he wasn’t fazed.

“I didn’t go right or left,” Lillard said. “I was just like, ‘Oh.’”

The Lillard of the past might have felt more slighted. Disrespected. Added it to the list of injustices during his career that he often points to as motivation. But he’s older now. Wiser.

“I felt more aware of it back then because I was striving to earn that respect and get those nods, but I think now that I’ve gotten older and I’ve matured in the league, my purpose is different,” Lillard said. “I think that’s the biggest thing. I’m not sweating it as I did as a younger player.”

Lillard finished third in the fan voting for the West backcourt behind Golden State’s Stephen Curry, who is back to his MVP-caliber self, and Dallas’ Luka Doncic. It is a virtual guarantee that Lillard will be selected to his sixth All-Star Game by the coaches, but he has never been voted in as a starter. What makes this situation so “controversial” is that Lillard finished second, behind Curry and ahead of Doncic, in the votes of NBA players and media members. But fan voting is worth 50%, while the media and player voting are each worth 25%. That left Doncic and Lillard tied with 50% each, with the tiebreaker being the fan voting.

Clearly, fan voting is quite subjective and has a lot to do with popularity, whereas one would hope that the player and media votes have more to do with merit.

On sheer individual performance, Lillard and Doncic are so close that it would require nitpicking dissection to decide which one has actually performed better.

Lillard is averaging 29.8 points, 7.7 assists and 4.4 rebounds. Doncic sits at 29.1 points, 9.4 assists and 8.6 rebounds. Advantage, Doncic. However, Lillard’s true shooting percentage is at 62.5% compared to 58.6% for Doncic, who has the higher field goal percentage (47.5% to 45.1%) but a lower three-point shooting percentage (33.5% to 38.4%). Also, Doncic is more careless with the basketball, averaging 4.2 turnovers compared to 3.1 for Lillard.

As for team success, Lillard and the Blazers hold a clear advantage. The Blazers are 18-10 and in fourth place in the Western Conference, while Dallas is in 10th place at 13-15. Plus, Lillard has led the Blazers to this point with the team’s second-best player, guard CJ McCollum, and its third-best player, center Jusuf Nurkic, missing large chunks of the season due to injury.

Lillard’s relationship with the All-Star Game has certainly evolved.

Early on in Lillard’s career, it was touch and go whether he would be selected as even a reserve in a Western Conference filled with All-Star-caliber guards. He made the team in 2014 but was left off in 2015, 2016 and 2017. However, he ultimately got on the team in 2015 and 2017 as an injury replacement.

In 2017, Lillard got overshadowed by James Harden, Curry, Klay Thompson and Russell Westbrook. In 2016 it was Westbrook, Curry, Thompson, Harden and Chris Paul.

To his credit, Lillard kept improving and in 2018 he made the team outright as a reserve and finished the season fourth in the MVP voting. In 2019, he made the team again and finished sixth in MVP voting. Last year he was a clear selection as well.

It seemed Lillard would one day be voted in as a starter, and this year more than any before looked like the best opportunity thus far.

Why? The changing landscape of the West. Harden is now in the East with Brooklyn. Westbrook is playing for Washington in the East. Thompson is out for the season with an Achilles injury. Paul is still in the West, but at age 35 the 10-time All-Star isn’t the player he once was.

Based on those developments, Lillard and Curry, averaging 30 points and 6 assists per game, would appear the obvious choices to start. The fact that Doncic, who turns 22 on Feb. 28, has already surpassed Lillard, 30, in fan popularity is in many ways a shame. Lillard more than paid his dues and has accomplished more in his career. Plus, he is legitimately better in many ways. But Lillard said instead of being frustrated, he finds solace in the support he’s received from the basketball community.

“I think anytime you got the support of the people who really watch the game and who love the game, it’s a great feeling,” Lillard said. “All I do is focus on improving every year that I come back and play, and try to be my best to give my team a chance to be their best. By me doing that, I think it shows my performance and my improvement, and I think it also shows how people have grown as far as supporting my game and respecting what I do.”

Blazers coach Terry Stotts said that based on what Lillard has done this season, there is no question he should be a starter.

“Voting is what it is and fan vote has always been a part of the All-Star Game and we take that for what it’s worth,” Stotts said. “But I think we all realize that Dame is the best point guard in the league right now and he should have been a starter.”

Nevertheless, Stotts said the news didn’t shock him, given the early ground Lillard had to make up in the voting. He said that he and Lillard pretty much figured this would be the result and that the disappointment wasn’t like in the past when a coach would simply not pick Lillard.

As for Lillard, to hear him tell it after Friday’s practice, he had already moved on. And despite maybe getting robbed by the fan voting, he said he wouldn’t want the NBA to change its process.

“I don’t want them to go change the rule because I’m not a starter,” he said.

Let’s take a closer look at how the voting went and why Lillard was in a bad position from the get-go this season to be named a starter over Doncic. Lillard wasn’t so much snubbed as he was the victim of bad timing and circumstance:

1. Fan voting has always been a popularity contest: The All-Star Game is set up to allow the fans to decided who starts in the game and that voting is done over the course of several weeks. So, complaining that someone got “snubbed” based on merit is nonsensical given that the honor is not based purely on merit. Plus, the voting takes place while said merit is in the process of being established. Also, the voting never has been solely about that season’s performance.

2. Early voting did in Lillard before his hot run: Sure, the Blazers are 18-10 and riding a six-game winning streak, but their hot play of late came toward the end of the fan voting, which began Jan. 28. On that day, the Blazers lost at Houston to fall to 9-8 and had lost four out of six games. The Blazers had not yet started to roll following the loss of McCollum and Nurkic. Dallas was 8-10 as of Jan. 28 and had lost six of eight. Both teams were struggling, and their records were close enough that they wouldn’t be a factor for most fans. The first fan results were released Feb. 4 and revealed that Doncic held a lead of 1,395,719 to 998,853, a difference of 396,866, or nearly 40% more votes for Doncic. Already, Lillard was behind the 8-ball.

3. Past perceptions matter: Doncic entered this season coming off of a massive second season in the NBA and had received early MVP buzz. Doncic in 2019-20 averaged 28.8 points, 8.8 assists and 9.4 rebounds with a true shooting percentage of 58.5%. Dallas went 43-32 to earn the seventh seed in the West playoffs. Lillard led Portland to the eighth seed with a 35-39 record. He also had a great season but lacked the same level of all-around numbers as Doncic. Lillard averaged 30 points, 8.0 assists and 4.3 rebounds with a true shooting percentage of 56.6%. Advantage Doncic in both all-around numbers and winning. Plus, he was an instant fan darling. That set the stage for the early 2020-21 voting.

4. Blazers’ hot streak ultimately mattered, but not enough: The Blazers upset Philadelphia on the road the night the first votes were released. However, Portland won that game without Lillard. In a four-game stretch, the Blazers got wins over Washington (4-13 at the time) and the 76ers (without Lillard) while getting blown out 134-106 at Milwaukee and losing at New York to end a six-game road trip at 3-3 on Feb. 6. That was not a very inspiring stretch. Dallas, meanwhile, went 2-2 during that same period, with Doncic going for 42 points and 11 assists in a win over Curry and Golden State. Portland then beat Orlando (9-16) on Feb. 9, two days before the next batch of votes were released. It’s not as if Lillard and the Blazers had done much between the start of voting and Feb. 11 to lead voters to select Lillard over Doncic. They went 5-3, with the most impressive victory coming without Lillard. The vote count released Feb. 11 had Doncic in second place (Curry led with 4,033,050 votes) at 2,484,552 votes. Lillard was in third at 2,095,157. Lillard had received more votes than Doncic from the first release to the second, but not enough to make a dent in his overall deficit. Lillard did, however, reduce Doncic’s percentage lead to 18.5%, down from 39.7%. On Feb. 11 is truly when Lillard’s push began. He led the Blazers to a home win over Philadelphia to ignite a six-game winning streak filled with great Lillard performances and moments. Portland also got a win over Dallas on Feb. 14. But to expect that weeklong showing to significantly impact voting was unrealistic. The final vote count on Thursday was 3,335,042 for Doncic and 2,848,663 for Lillard. Doncic’s overall lead actually grew to 486,379 votes, but the percentage difference fell to 17.1%. So, clearly, Lillard’s great play and team success helped him make up ground with voters. But there was no way voting would have flipped enough for Lillard to make up the difference based on one week of action.

At the end of the day, earning a spot on the All-NBA team is far more important than being named an All-Star starter, or even an All-Star reserve.

Lillard in 2016 pulled the neat trick of not being selected to the All-Star Game but being named second-team All-NBA. This season, he has a legitimate shot to be named first-team All-NBA after not being named an All-Star starter. Also, Lillard is firmly entrenched as a league MVP candidate.

So, it’s certainly not all bad from Lillard’s perspective.

— Aaron Fentress | [email protected] | @AaronJFentress (Twitter), @AaronJFentress (Instagram), @AaronFentress (Facebook).

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