Damian Lillard on Michael Jordan at NBA Top 75 event: ‘When Jordan walked up, you could see right away he’s the one’

Damian Lillard: If [Lamarcus Aldridge] would have never went to San Antonio, we would have won at least once already. I would have came into my own but he was that good -via YouTube / August 20, 2024

Damian Lillard names his current favorite players: I’m gonna go with Anthony Edwards. I think everybody is super high on him right now but I like him because of his energy, like the swag about him is authentic, and he got the game to go with it. So I’m gonna go with Anthony Edwards. I’m gonna go with Ja Morant. He got into some trouble so I think people kind of turned off to him a little bit but I mean I know what I’m looking at. Luka Doncic, I’m leaving somebody out… Joker and Giannis. That’s my five right now. -via YouTube / August 20, 2024

Damian Lillard on making the NBA Top 75: ‘This ain’t like no All-Star voting, it ain’t a popularity contest, it ain’t none of that. It’s like what have you done. That’s why it meant so much for me cuz it was like, I could think of bigger names and if they had to say 75 players that they might just off the top of the head put them in front of me yeah, but when you look at the body of work, it’s a lot of players in the league that like it’s probably like James, KD, Russ, Steph, Bron, Demar, but after Chris Paul, it ain’t nobody that got more career points than me and they all been in the league for three or more years longer than me and I ain’t far behind. With me being in the playoffs on a vet team and on a rebuilding team, we started rebuilding we was right back in there like right back in the playoffs, eight straight years, so it’s like that was the first time I was like like they made the right decision. Like people ain’t going to see it right now but when they look back at like what actually took place they going to be like ‘he should be in there’. -via YouTube / August 20, 2024

How do you think your generation of basketball is different from older generations? Anthony Edwards: I didn’t watch it back in the day so I can’t speak on it. They say it was tougher back then than it is now, but I don’t think anybody had skill back then. [Michael Jordan] was the only one that really had skill, you know what I mean? So that’s why when they saw Kobe [Bryant], they were like, “Oh, my God.” But now everybody has skill.  -via Wall Street Journal / August 20, 2024

Joining Jeff Teague and Club 520 Podcast, Vernon Maxwell spoke about Drazen Petrovic, also drawing a comparison with one of the most important players in today’s NBA landscape. “Oh boy, [Drazen] Petrovic. That mother**cker was something else, man. God bless you. I used to tell Rudy Tomjanovich “Treat this mother**cker like you treat Michael Jordan”, he opened. -via EuroHoops.net / August 19, 2024

Vernon Maxwell: ‘Oh boy, Petrovic. That motherf*cker was something else, man. God bless you. I used t tell Rudy Tomjanovich ‘treat this motherf*cker like you treat Michael Jordan.’ When he come out the game bring my ass out the game, when he come to the goddamn table let me meet him at the table. I don’t want nobody else guard this motherf*cker… He was a killer. Q. They kind of compare him with Luka Doncic. Maxwell: I agree, Luka is a killer too. -via YouTube / August 19, 2024