Despite being 11 season into a likely Hall of Fame career, Damian Lillard’s legacy is still a favorite debate topic among NBA analysts and fans.
On one hand, the Trail Blazers guard is a six-time All-Star and lifetime 24.7 point-per-game scorer with six All-Star appearances and five top-10 finishes in the MVP voting.
On the other, team success in Portland over that timeframe has been fleeting, with the Trail Blazers making just one trip to the Western Conference finals in 2019.
Opposing players' respect for Lillard, however, is undeniable. Longtime guard JJ Redick effusively praised Lillard in a Monday interview with Bleacher Report's Taylor Rooks.
"You can't tell me Damian Lillard is not a f---ing winner," Redick said. "Yes, he doesn't have a ring, but I would say that guy's a champion."
Redick and Lillard overlapped for the latter's first nine seasons in the league. In 2016, Lillard and Portland eliminated Redick's Clippers in the first round of the playoffs in six games.
Redick’s teams were 16–10 against Lillard’s teams in games between them in the regular season and playoffs, but Lillard outscored Redick in those games by an average of 19.3 to 15.5.
In a June discussion with Draymond Green, Redick praised Lillard as "the only guy that shoots it remotely like [Stephen Curry]."
Like Curry, Lillard was named to the NBA's 75th Anniversary Team in 2021, one of only five players drafted in the 2010s to be so named.
