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The history of the Portland Trail Blazers is the same story, told fresh to each generation. A singular talent arrives in town to play basketball with skill and grace. He carries the team to dizzying altitudes; Rip City claims him as its own. Inevitably, the star feels betrayed by the Blazers, and demands a trade to a more successful franchise. Portland mourns, and awaits the coming of another hoops messiah.
Bill Walton, Clyde Drexler, Damian Lillard: These are the three tragic heroes of Blazers basketball, and we could have chosen any of them to illustrate this civic folk tale. The debate over which of the trio is the best to ever wear the sash on his jersey will continue as long as fans need distraction from a 20-point road loss on a January night. But we chose Lillard because no other Blazer returned the city’s love so wholeheartedly, or could equal his flair for the dramatic gesture.
He was a scrappy 6-foot-3 guard drafted from a college in the mountains of Utah who declared himself to the world on May 2, 2014, with a playoff series-winning 3-point shot launched with a fraction of a second left in the game. (Every Blazers fan can tell you how much time was on the clock: 0.9 seconds.) Five years later, he took the team to the Western Conference finals with another ludicrous buzzer-beater, this one launched from near the halfcourt logo. (Die-hards know the exact distance: 35 feet.) As the shots sank through the net, the world seemed to expand: All things were possible with Dame on our side.
The clutch shooting meant more because Lillard, born in Oakland, embraced his adopted city with fervor. He visited high schools for a mentorship program; he handed out sneakers in city parks. For nearly a decade, he took offense at the idea that Portland was too podunk for a player of his talent. He spoke to any reporter who would listen about his dream of riding, like Walton, in a championship parade down Broadway. For a city that likes to marinate in feelings of exceptionalism and self-loathing, this was intoxicating—like falling in love.
Later, there was heartbreak. There always is. But on two nights in the Portland spring, five years apart, you could walk down the street and hear the sound of that love.
“I wasn’t watching the game,” WW writer Matthew Korfhage recounted in 2014. “I was walking down the street. First, there was a tense guttural sound from six different houses, and then six different houses erupted in wild cheers. They couldn’t hear each other in the different houses—they didn’t even know the other people existed—but from where I stood they were all cheering together.”
Carry it forward: Lillard now plays for the Milwaukee Bucks. He still has a home (and a Toyota dealership) in Oregon; the chances that he returns to the Blazers, in a coaching or front-office capacity or just to retire in the uniform, are pretty good. The odds he gets a statue outside Moda Center are even better.
But the Blazers themselves are in as precarious a spot as they’ve been since their founding—following owner Paul Allen’s death, the team must soon be sold, and the arena is one of the oldest in the NBA. Either this city’s leaders will show the foresight to recognize what a binding force love of basketball is in this city, or the heartbreak of one Blazer leaving will seem quaint compared to the pain that follows.
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