Damian Lillard Didn't Deserve The Backlash, But Every Star Should Play When NBA Returns

Damian Lillard claimed he wouldn't play when the NBA season resumes

Damian Lillard drew a lot of backlash after saying he wouldn't play unless the Blazers had a shot at the playoffs. SI senior writer Chris Mannix details why Lillard didn't deserve the backlash he got, and how the NBA needs their star players to play when the season resumes. 

Read below for full video transcript:

So Damian Lillard certainly could have worded his comments better when he told Yahoo Sports that he had no interest in playing in a resumed season that didn't offer the Blazers a true opportunity to make the playoffs. But the backlash directed at Lillard has been just as goofy. Lillard has been called spoiled, entitled, and an ego maniac across the sports networks. Labels that could not be further from the truth. 

Spoiled? Lillard was an underrecruited high school star who turned himself from a mid major player to a lottery pick to one of the NBA's most dangerous scorers. Entitled? Lillard's publicly known charity is notable from the millions he has poured into the Portland and Oakland, California communities, to the hundred thousand dollars he almost immediately put up to support the Blazers Covid-19 fund. The reactions were unsurprisingly uneducated and goofy. 

That being said, if the NBA does determine that all 30 teams should come back and that when they do, Lillard's Blazers won't have a path to make the playoffs, Lillard should play. No one wants to see a bubble playoff team come back as a glorified sparring partner, but these are unprecedented times. The NBA is hemorrhaging cash and there are contractual obligations that need to be made to regional television partners to prevent any further financial bleeding. That's important because while the NBA has protected jobs up until this point, as we have seen with Major League Baseball, at some point the cost of the pandemic will impact staffing. There's no question Adam Silver will look to address the asks of Lillard and others. 

But for the greater good, if the NBA does come back, regardless of what form, Lillard and every other player should play. 

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