Time passes little by little, the season enters the final stage, Lillard has not returned so far, and for Lillard, the opportunity and time to prove himself are getting less and less.
So far, the Blazers' record is 26 wins and 41 losses, ranking 11th in the West, 1 win away from the 10th-place Pelicans and 11th-placed Spurs. For the Trailblazers, the current situation is on the cliff.
Lillard has played in 29 games so far this season, averaging 24 points, 7.3 assists and 4.1 rebounds per game. Injuries are a topic that players can't avoid, Lillard's return time is undecided, the end of the season and the adaptation period after the initial recovery of injury, so even if Lillard can return later in the season, it may be difficult to achieve the desired effect for the Blazers.
For Lillard, this season should be an extremely depressed season, combined with the actual situation of the Blazers, perhaps in the future for Lillard, the opportunity to stay in the Blazers to prove themselves will be less and less, especially after CJ and Norman left, the team did not even have a scoring point of 20 points per game. But it's therefore not feasible to summarize the Blazers' season as a rotten season, because even so, the Blazers seem to have the hope of advancing to the playoffs, which may be the only good news for the Blazers at this stage.
For Lillard today, there are actually some tasks that need to be completed to further prove himself and improve his historical positioning.
One of the controversies about Lillard this season was the slump at the start of the season, and then about Lillard being named to the Big 75. Returning to Lillard itself, even if the current environment has been questioned so much, it probably does not affect Lillard's state of mind and real strength.
Let's start with the first point of controversy: Lillard's slump at the start of the season. In the 2021 season, Lillard played the strongest season of his career so far, especially in the first half of the last season, Lillard played MVP-level performances, before the All-Star Game, Lillard averaged more than 30 points per game, averaging more than 7.5 points per game in the last 5 minutes of the fourth quarter, the league first, frequently appearing on the MVP weekly list. Also in the last season, witnessed too many lillard's magical performances at key moments, repeatedly carrying the team forward with his own strength, reversing the game, but the super-godly Lillard retracted some of his magic after the return of CJ, even so, at the end of the regular season, Lillard also averaged 28.8 points, 7.5 assists, 4.2 rebounds, 0.9 steals per game; in the playoffs, Lillard contributed 55 points in the game against the Nuggets. So it is not the CJ pulling the crotch at the key moment of the overtime, and KD's super triple-double of 49 points, 17 rebounds and 10 assists in the Battle of Tenno mountain is too eye-catching, and the performance presented by Lillard in this game will be the most wonderful personal performance in the playoffs in 2021, which is Lillard last season, a Lillard who is even embarrassed to occupy the All-Star starting position even doncic, who also exploded his personal data. So when expectations are full, it often doesn't necessarily get the expected results, and Lillard's performance in the 2021 season makes people start to expect more from him.
But when the U.S. team first competed in the Olympics, Lillard's performance first poured a wave of cold water on the fans, in contrast, Durant proved to people that the super gold content. Then at the start of the season, Lillard's habitual crotch pulling and occasional outbursts seemed to disappoint the anticipated fans in a way. If Durant's lifelong enemy is James, then Lillard's lifelong enemy is Curry. In the first half of last season, Lillard and Curry's performances were equally divided, and even to be fair, Lillard's performance was slightly stronger than Curry's, especially Lillard's performance in the final moments of the game frequently played the role of a key gentleman, and in the second half of the season, Curry opened up, but the actual comprehensive performance of the 21st season can still be considered only in terms of single-season performance, Lillard and Curry are the same level of defenders, compared with Curry, how well Lillard performed last season.
And time to this season, Lillard and Curry are no longer in the same echelon, on the one hand, because of the lack of appearances, on the other hand, the average data per game has declined, and the key ball is pulled.
Although Lillard has always believed that he is not much inferior to The Point Guard such as Curry, Paul, and Westbrook, just like Irving seems to have a gorgeous style and many fans, there is actually a certain gap between him and Lillard, which is the current situation of defenders, the comparison between actual players, especially the comparison of players in the same position, with on-field performance as the only measure, and not with the will of the fans as a transfer.
So when these performances, especially this season's performances, are presented, it will tend to be even more unfavorable to Lillard's selection of the 75.
On October 21, 2021, the day before the start of the NBA's new season, the NBA officially released the entire list of the 75 superstars in the 75th anniversary of the NBA, which caused controversy and heat even exceeded the Lakers and warriors' season opener, the focus of the debate was mainly around who should be selected but not selected and who should not be selected but actually elected or who should be selected instead of whom, and the focus of the second half of the discussion mainly revolved around Lillard, so Lillard was really "bad" Isn't it worth a big 75 spot?
First look at Lillard's career honors, 6 All-Star lineups, 6 best teams (1 team, 4 second teams, 1 third team); career highlights: 60 points per game, 30 points per game in a single season, 30 points per game in a single season, three-pointers in the 2014 playoff season, sending the Rockets out of the first round, the 2019 season playoffs super far three-point thunder and leading the team to the Western Conference Finals. So far, Lillard's career averages: 24.4 points, 6.6 assists, 4.1 rebounds, 1 steal. In summary, assuming that the 75 judging background is thrown aside, Lillard is an extremely good player, but there is still a layer of window paper from the superstar, perhaps it is more appropriate to use "quasi-supergiant" to describe Lillard, so "quasi-supergiant" is selected as the 75th big Really There will be a lot of controversy?
The 75 major judging criteria are combined with the all-round performance of a player's career to evaluate, the evaluation criteria will be as strict as possible, and the composition of the participants will be more rigorous, and the players, coaches, executives, and media will vote and score the players to be selected, and the players cannot vote for themselves, in order to ensure fairness and justice as much as possible.
But despite this, after the list was released, it still caused such a big "public anger", and I don't know whether it was unexpected by the alliance or was in the official hands. Not only did many fans question Lillard's selection and the failure of other stars, but even players personally went down to express dissatisfaction and protest against their own failure, such as Howard and Thompson.
In fact, you can also look at the 75 superstars from another perspective, then it is about 75 years of history, the best 7 people in every 10 years, so also look at Lillard's selection, that is, Lillard is one of the best 7 stars in the past 10 years?
In the 75 big list, the active stars are James, Durant, Curry, Leonard, Alphabet Brother, Westbrook, Harden, Davis, Anthony, Paul, Lillard, a total of 11 people, so in all fairness, regardless of the 7, Lillard is the best 11 in the last 10 years? Perhaps from this point of view, Lillard really deserves to be called the big 75, otherwise can we find out that in the past 10 years, in addition to the 10 people selected, Lillard is more worthy of being selected than Lillard? Of course, this is just a not very reliable hypothesis, the 75 evaluation criteria are measured by the entire 75 years, so this is also when Maddy and Carter lose, there are also fans who will be upset and Howard will cause great controversy when they lose.
Howard has been selected as an All-Star 8 times in his career, selected to the Best Team 8 times (5 times first-team, 1 time 2-team, 2 times three-time third-team), won DPOY (NBA Best Defensive Player) for 3 consecutive times, led the team to the Finals in the 2009 season, and in the honor comparison, it can be found that compared to Lillard, Howard is obviously more dominant, but the reality is that Lillard gets more votes than Howard.
In fact, just to compare personal honors, Lillard is not dominant over Maddy, Maddy has been selected to the All-Star Team 7 times in his career, 2 times selected for the NBA Best First Team, 3 times selected for the NBA Best Second Team, and won two consecutive scoring kings, if the current honor comparison is calculated, Maddy is actually stronger than Lillard in hard honors. And in the classic highlight moments, Maddy is not behind, Maddy has averaged 32 points per game in a single season, 62 points per game, and one of the most classic solo performances in NBA history: 35 seconds and 13 minutes. But Maddy has a fatal subtraction when comparing with Lillard, that is, Maddy's team results, from magic to rockets, Maddy is the team boss, is the core of the team, the first scorer, from the 00 season to the 09 season, Maddy's real best result in leading the team is a round of playoffs, so compared to Lillard's two breakthrough rounds, and once into the Western Conference Finals, Maddie lost, the same reason can also be compared to Carter, and the actual hard honor comparison, Carter compared to Lillard is not dominant, And so does Clay.
So the focus of the problem is still on the comparison between Lillard and Howard, assuming that the facts that have already happened, Lillard and Howard who should be selected for the 75, this question should be concerned about fans will have their own answers. In the comparison between the active duty angle and the current league's combat strength, Lillard is younger and at the peak, but the 75 is not an All-Star, so with Howard's resume, it really should not be excluded from the 75, and in a way, the focus of the debate should not focus on Lillard, And the comprehensive evaluation of all aspects of Lillard's career is indeed worth a 75 seat, so who should give up a place? Perhaps a more worthy issue to discuss.