Damian Lillard doesn’t feel as though he gets enough credit for being one of the best players in the NBA over the course of his career.
“They definitely don’t talk about it,” Lillard said on the Club 520 podcast. “They act like I don’t be doing what I’ve been doing. This is going to be my 13th season… My time in the league, when I think about how many people have been very good over that time, it ain’t been that many people that have been here the whole time, since I’ve been in the league, that just been doing it, like over and over and over. But I think people just get bored with consistency. And I ain’t loud, but I’ve been doing it that long and winning.”
Lillard, 34, has seemingly earned plenty of respect during his NBA career.
He’s an eight-time All-Star, seven-time All-NBA selection (one time on the first team, four times on the second team, two times on the third team) and was selected to the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team, meaning voters selected him as one of the 75 best players in league history.
He earned that honor despite never winning a championship, and was one of just 11 active players at the time named to the team, joining Giannis Antetokounmpo, Carmelo Anthony, Stephen Curry, Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant, James Harden, LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook.
Part of Lillard’s point seemed to be that he doesn’t always get credit for being one of the elite shooters in basketball. Part of that may be era-specific—Stephen Curry is the greatest shooter in NBA history, while players like Klay Thompson and James Harden helped usher in the age of volume three-point shooting.
On the list of most three-pointers made in a season, Curry has recorded seven of the top-12 totals in league history, while Harden has two top-10 appearances and Thompson one. Lillard’s best season in terms of volume came in the 2020-21 season, when he recorded 275 triples, ranking 18th in NBA history. It was one of two appearances on the top 25.
