Damian Lillard’s Return To Portland Is Bigger Than Basketball | Harris & Marang

Damian Lillard’s Return To Portland Is Bigger Than Basketball | Harris & Marang

Damen Lillard coming back to Portland is such a win for this city. We will talk basketball later today. We’ll talk basketball in a year in at the beginning of the season. Like there’s plenty of room for basketball. But I think what’s really important and if you listen to the boys in the morning, they said the same thing that this is just it’s a happy moment. You know, we talked about it yesterday when the news broke uh when Bill Orum tweeted that out. Shams confirmed it. You yourself confirmed it, Danny. and we were able to kind of have that instant reaction now that we’ve had a little time to breathe, a little time to catch our breath. Uh, where are you today on this situation? I mean, I went home yesterday and did about 354 minutes on a live show on Jack Ramsey’s and and call me corny or whatever. There was a there’s a point in time where the the thug tears almost came out. The thug tears? Oh, yeah. I don’t know what that is. I had to fight him back, man. I was just telling him, “Get back in there. Get because it was just like It’s such a win. It’s such a win. It’s such a win for the city. It’s such a win for the fan base. Like um I’m not going to share this person’s name. Um but I got a lot of texts like these. And he is the um father of a young man who has a disability and he is at every Trailblazers game and I see them damn near every game. And he DM’d me and was like, “My son was heartbroken, heartbroken when Dame left.” And he had he said he hasn’t been the same since Dame left. But today he elevated in his wheelchair and excitement is back in his world. That’s amazing. Like I literally sent it to Dame and like it was like this is what you mean to people, man. We do it for the kids. This is dope that you’re coming back. And he he was like, “It’s bigger than basketball.” Wang is for the children. And it’s like I have probably a dozen stories in my phone over the last, you know, less than 24 hours like this of varying degrees. Whether it’s somebody talking about their their their uh disabled son or the 55year-old Blazers fan who was a kid in 77 and watched them win a title and still what Dame means to them. Like just it runs the gamut. Men, women, young, old, it just Dame is Portland. We talked about the other day when Adam Silver, you know, mentioned the oh, you know, the new arena when we when we thought we had freaked out the biggest for the week. Yeah. We thought that was our biggest freak out for the week. And it was it was it was like we talked about it and I didn’t necessarily didn’t want to in the sense of like cuz it’s I don’t number one, I don’t think it’s going to happen, but number two, it’s super depressing, but the idea of the team leaving the town is on the literal other end of the spectrum where Dame coming back is such an infusion of hope, joy, and people like, “Oh, it’s just nostalgia.” And it’s like, it’s not just that. He means more. Hey, I’ll tell you what. Even if it is a little bit of nostalgia, I’m okay with that because this town’s reputation, some deserved, some not deserved, has taken a pretty big hit over the last 5 years. And to have somebody who by all accounts uh publicly and privately, is a just a great human being. Choosing to be here and making places like here his priority has to make you feel good in this town. Now again, you can, you know, you can have you can have your anti- from a basketball standpoint kind of views on this. You can have your, well, I don’t it doesn’t make sense to me on a financial or a or a team level, like I’m willing to hear those. But as far as just a feel-good, yeah. As far as just me waking up and being like, “Yeah, I come into Portland every day and I talk about sports and I get to talk about Damen Lillard for at least three more years while he’s here instead of being afar.” Like we were talking about uh Big 10 media days coming up and it’s like we got to cover Jonathan Smith. How long do we cover Jonathan Smith? Yeah. you know, how long do people care about that story until he’s, you know, not at Michigan State and now he’s at Coastal Carolina or he does really well and now he’s at Florida State or something like that. When does that stop being a local vibe? And I think Dame could have gone down that path as well, but we don’t have to think about that anymore. And, you know, it’s funny you bring that up. I I’m writing up the kind of, you know, the Dame is back piece uh for the Patreon and tried to have it finished last night, but I was wiped out after doing everything. And um that was kind of the framing of it in the sense of the last time I wrote about Damen Lord was it was a very long uh kind of personal you know process of that whole summer. Hey this is supposed to be strictly business. You were taking this very personal and I love you for it. No it was like a Godfather. No no no I got you. But it was, you know, I documented the all 89 days and kind of what I saw and what what things were from my point of view. Mh. And, you know, without giving too much of it away, it was like I thought that might that might be the last time I wrote about Damen Lo as a trailblazer. And my takeaway from all this, my selfish takeaway is that’s not true anymore. And now we get to talk about Damen Lillard as one of our own again. And there’s something about that that is just resonating through everybody. Stories don’t end this way. No, they just don’t. No. Think about Michael leaves Chicago, goes to the Wizards, and it’s like, “Okay, this isn’t so great. We’d we’d love a reunion tour, one more year in in Chicago. Come on back, bud.” It’s like, “No, think about like I have the one day contract to retire, but nobody cares about that.” Right. I mean, you know, Dwayne Wade kind of coming back to the Heat was was kind of this and that’s probably the closest that it comes, but you know, Wade wasn’t traded away. he was left for agency like because he wasn’t getting his money. So, I was trying to I without diving into it, I it’s kind of an open-ended question. I was like, how many guys are top draft picks that are franchise icons that get traded away that come back and actually play? Like I I don’t have any off the top of my head. I my my going through my head, I was like, God, is does that exist? I think the only person I I can’t think of somebody that’s actually done it. The only person I could think of that could do it, which I really don’t want to get into, but I’m going to say it, is LeBron. That’s the only one I could see. Yeah. But again, he also left in free agency. Correct. Like he wasn’t he wasn’t treated fair fair. So you’re talking about somebody not against their will, but it’s a point of contention. Like yeah, plenty of guys have left and come back and then that part of it, but like this is different because he was traded away. Joe Montana never went back to San Francisco. Yeah. This doesn’t happen. It’s It’s a very unique very Portland thing. Is it a Portland thing? Is it Is this our our uh personality in a nutshell? Yeah, I think so. That not looking people in the eye. Yeah. Damn looking in the eye. Passive aggressive. He’s done it before and I got really scared. I used to work at a place in Lake Asiggo and there was a we had an event space there and it was uh St was still the coach and I mean gez this is probably 10 years ago and they had like a pre-season like welcome back sort of thing and they came out and they were there and guys are walking by guys are walking by and you’re kind of like oh snap that’s Damen Lillard and he made eye contact with me and I thought I was going to die. It was like piercing into my soul in a good way but in like a I’m serious I see him. He He’s a very like he knows the name of every security guard in the building kind of a deal. Like legitimately at Moda, like all the ushers and stuff like that, he knows everyone. What if I want to do that, but I’m an idiot and have a terrible memory and can’t remember everyone’s names. He’s right on your hand. I want to be like Shohi. You know, show says hi to umpires every time at the beginning of the game. He’s like, “Hey.” The really funny thing is when uh Freddy Freeman screws with him because he always pays, you know, it’s the elderly respect from the Japanese culture. Mhm. And Freddy will stand there like before they’re walking on the field and like stand by the door and show he’s like, “Nope, not walking through first. Not walking through first.” And Freddy will just sit there and screw with him and screw with him and screw with him and then finally go and then show will give him a little bow and go. And it’s like it’s lit, you know, little things like that. It’s fun. Well, the city of Portland got their flowers and we’re all feeling pretty good about it. Seeing that on the text line in the YouTube chat. I’ll read some of those when we come back. Uh that’s how great it feels now. That’s how it feels to be a fan.

Damian Lillard returning to Portland is great for the team, but it’s much more than that.

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