You never forget your first love, and in the case of Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard, his love is with him at all times. His first love is a basketball, and like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, he hopes he and his love never part.
Lillard is teaming with Spalding in a new web series highlighting his love for the basketball. In the first video, the Blazers point guard talks about the improved grip when it comes to Spalding basketballs. The Oakland native even goes into how important gripping the basketball in late game situations matters by highlighting the most clutch shot he’s ever hit in his career: the 2014 Game Six series clincher against the Houston Rockets.
In the second video, which will hit airwaves on Monday, Lillard talks about being selfish with his own basketball. In a very personal story, Lillard talks about never giving up the basketball, even in workouts with family. He goes into further detail talking about making his cousins who travel to Portland to work out with him before the season bring their own basketball because his basketball is that personal to him.
The 26-year-old Lillard is coming off a career year in terms of scoring, in which he averaged 27 points per game while shooting a career high 44 percent from the field. While it was a personal best for Lillard, the Trail Blazers only squeaked out 41 wins on their way to the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference, where the Golden State Warriors promptly swept them in four games.
Lillard and the Blazers hope to improve upon a season in which C.J. McCollum also broke out. With a back-to-the-basket threat in Jusuf Nurkic, Portland seems playoff-bound once again.
