NEW YORK — Damian Lillard wears No. 0 for the Portland Trail Blazers because O stands for Oakland, his hometown and the basketball hotbed that gave the NBA a couple of elite playmakers named Jason Kidd and Gary Payton.
So maybe it’s not exactly a coincidence that Lillard is doing the kinds of things that Kidd and Payton did when they were establishing themselves as future Hall of Famers.
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“With those three guys, I don’t know if it’s Oakland, but there is a similar thread that goes through them,” said Portland coach Terry Stotts, who coached Payton in Seattle when he worked for George Karl, and later won a title under Rick Carlisle in Dallas when Kidd played a prominent role in helping Dirk Nowitzki get his championship in 2011. “I don’t like to stereotype players, but there is a toughness there with the three. They all have it. They have the mental toughness and a winning mentality.”
Lillard has the Blazers winning plenty these days, which is one of this season’s great, if undiscussed, surprises. There’s so much talk about his hometown team, and rightfully so. As Stephen Curry has turned the MVP competition into a one-man race, his Warriors are busy making a mockery of the league with their nightly assault on the Bulls’ 72-win record.
But the other big story out on the Left Coast is what Lillard and Portland have done after the Blazers blew up their perennial playoff team last summer. They let three starters and their sixth man walk in free agency, traded a fourth starter and gave their fourth-year playmaker the role that he was born to fill: team leader.
LaMarcus Aldridge, Nicolas Batum, Wesley Matthews, Robin Lopez and Arron Afflalo were barely out the door when Lillard called for nine new teammates to meet him in San Diego in August to start the bonding process. They hooped and hung out. Once they were done in So Cal, he convened informal workouts in Portland prior to Labor Day.
The pay-off didn’t come immediately, as the Blazers went 15-24 through Jan. 8. But look at them now. Going into Friday night’s showdown at the Raptors, they’ve won 18 of their last 23 games, including a win over the Warriors, to put themselves solidly in seventh place in the Western Conference.
Lillard is not satisfied, not at all.
“The season is six, seven, eight months, and we’ve done it for a month and a half,” he said after the Blazers waltzed to a win over the hapless Knicks in the Garden earlier in the week. “The next step is to sustain this for a longer period of time. We’ve figured out how to do it. Now we need to permanently be this team, show that this is who we are.”
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They’re fun to watch because Lillard and C.J. McCollum can explode every night and might be the second-best backcourt in the NBA after the Warriors’ Splash Brothers. McCollum is having a breakout season in his third year in Portland, and Lillard doesn’t resent it or feel threatened by it. He’s genuinely happy for his teammate who is averaging over 20 ppg and giving the defense another shooter to worry about. In turn, McCollum is grateful for Lillard’s acceptance, saying, “He’s our leader. We’re going where he’ll take us.”
Maybe all the way to the playoffs, although that’s no given. Friday’s matchup against the Raptors’ equally potent backcourt of Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan comes near the end of a rugged six-game East Coast trek. Then March becomes one long hell week, with five measuring-stick road games over a 14-day stretch, at Oakland, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Dallas and at Los Angeles against the Clippers.
“I don’t even want to look at the schedule,” said Stotts, half-jokingly, on Sirius XM NBA Radio.
But Stotts can look at it and think he’s got a real chance to get his team to postseason because the ball is in the right player’s hands.
Instead of players walking around on eggshells in the locker room, wondering what kind of mood Aldridge is in, this is a looser group that gladly follows a fast-rising superstar who never misses a game, never asks for a day off and holds himself to the highest standards, on and off the court.
That gives him credibility with teammates, along with the fact that other than Stephen Curry, there probably has not been a better player since the All-Star break. In his last 10 games, Lillard has had eight games of at least 30 points, including with his 51-point blistering of the Warriors.
“What makes him really good as a leader is that he always does the right things,” Stotts said. “He’s great for us in the locker room and he’s great in the huddle. He knows how to communicate with his teammates. He’s what you want from your leader, who’s also your best player and your point guard.”
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But it’s really no surprise because Lillard showed that he was a natural when it came to handling the responsibilities, as a four-year starter (including part of a season for which he drew a medical redshirt) for Weber State.
“When we decided we were going in a new direction, we talked to Damian about being the leader,” Stotts said. “He was ready for the role and we felt it was the right thing to do. In his first three years, he was an All-Star and All-NBA performer, but we had more of a veteran team. So he took a backseat when it came to the leadership role. But we knew he was ready for the next step. Besides scoring, when we need him to score, and getting other people involved, he’s doing things in the locker room that make a difference.”
A big difference, but let’s remember, he wears the No. 0 for a reason.
Slam dunks
• Add Penny Hardaway to the growing list of people who think Mike Conley will re-sign with the Grizzlies in July. The former NBA great is Conley’s neighbor in Memphis and says that Conley has been told by the Griz that they’re committed to building around him for the future.
• After the Nuggets pulled out of a potential deal for Blake Griffin at the trading deadline, with Kenneth Faried and Jusuf Nurkic in a mega-package heading to Clipper-land, according to league sources with knowledge of the Nuggets’ offer, Denver is still a possible landing spot for Griffin in June.
• Carmelo Anthony’s apology to the Knick fan who berated him during the Knicks-Blazers game at Madison Square was posted on the Knicks’ Twitter feed, but not on Anthony’s. Hmmm. Then Anthony admitted that the apology was owner James Dolan’s idea. Hmmm. Keep an eye on this one.
• How Miami got Beno Udrih to give up $90,000 and walk away from the Heat is still a big mystery.
• The reason Indiana targeted Ty Lawson, as Sporting News reported, is because George Hill is not close to being 100 percent.
