Portland Trail Blazers rookie Damian Lillard emerges in the Summer League – NBA Update
When Damian Lillard was drafted as the sixth overall selection by the Portland Trail Blazers, it began the start of a new journey. The Blazers had high expectations of their young prospect and four games on in the Las Vegas summer
league, Lillard is living up to his bidding.
The young point guard averaged a sensational 26.5 points, 5.3 assists and 4.0 rebounds, enough to earn him a combined MVP award with second year Memphis Grizzlies guard Josh Selby.
"I wouldn't say I'm tearing it up … but it's good to be out here in a game environment. I get to play against NBA-level talent and get up and down and develop that chemistry with my teammates." – Lillard recently said about his
exploits.
The young man despite some spectacular displays in the summer league has been able to keep his head and instead of going overboard he continues to work hard.
Even though Lillard caused 3.8 turnovers per game in Las Vegas but a keen sense of learning and his ability to shoot the ball completely satisfies his bidding of being a top ten pick. Lillard shot the ball 43.8% from the floor
in the 4 games, which included nearly 38 percent conversion from the long range. In addition to that he made 25 0f 28 free throws.
However with a high turnover to assist ratio, a few question marks have been left on Lillard’s playmaking abilities, something the young one guard believes will improve as soon as he is surrounded by better players;
"I think my ability to make plays is underrated," Lillard said. "I think with talent around me, I'll be able to show it. … I really just want to show that my game transfers and win games.”
Along with being a capable scorer in the summer league, Lillard was able to form strong on-court chemistry with another one of Portland’s lottery picks - Meyers Leonard, the number 9 pick.
"With Meyers, he's just a high-level rebounder, a great athlete, and I can just put the ball at the rim for him out of the pick-and-roll and he'll go dunk it," Lillard said. "If I happen to make a mistake on defense, he's cleaning
up the paint, blocking shots."
Portland would certainly hope that these two rookies, especially Lillard, can be the focal point of their run back to being a playoff contender. The already have LaMarcus Aldridge and Nicolas Batum in their ranks and if the two
rookies continue to impress, the Trail Blazers can be a force to be reckoned with pretty soon.
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