Damian Lillard is considered one of the best and most fun-to-watch guards in the NBA as the franchise player of the Portland Trail Blazers.
The six-time All-Star explained the reason he isn’t interested in playing for a bigger market team. Lillard is on his ninth season with the Blazers, but he has yet to make an NBA Finals appearance.
(via Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe):
“For every person that says I want to see him on the bigger stage and I want to see him go to a bigger market, of course those places have pros but nobody ever wants to talk about the cons,” Lillard said.
“If you take that step and you go somewhere and it’s not where it seems to be and it doesn’t work out … or an injury happens and you haven’t established as much rapport with that team and they choose one guy over the next guy and now you’re traded to a third team.”
Lillard has remained loyal to the franchise since the start of his NBA career leading the Blazers to seven playoff appearances.
This season, he’s expected to do the same with Portland having the fifth best record in the Western Conference, despite the roster’s injury issues, with CJ McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic out for most of the first part of the 2020/21 season.
