Portland Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard is known for his 40-foot 3-point bombs and tapping his wrist to indicate it’s Dame Time when he goes on a scoring binge in any given game.
But around Utah, Lillard is also known for his time at Weber State University and how much respect he still has for his alma mater and Ogden. At the NBA 3-point shootout on Saturday night, Lillard will pay homage to the school that helped turn him into a first-round draft pick by wearing his college jersey during the event at Vivint Arena.
“I think anytime an All-Star Weekend is in a place where somebody connects with that place, I think it’s important to pay homage and to acknowledge that,” he said. “The fact that I lived here for four years, went to school here, like I said, I met so many friends and so many people that I still interact with and deal with on a personal level here, and just what I’ve laid down in this area, on the Wasatch Front, I think it was just perfect. It was perfect to be able to do that.”
Lillard came from Oakland to Ogden and played for the Wildcats from 2008-12 and still comes back each summer to host an alumni basketball game on campus. That’s why Lillard said his seventh All-Star game feels like coming home.
“The people that I run into I met when I was 17, and they’re looking at me and I’m almost twice the age that I met them at. It’s pretty cool,” Lillard said. “... Yeah, it does. It feels like a homecoming. I feel like if it was in Oakland, I would feel this way.”
To experience the festivities in Utah means a great deal to him.
“To be able to be in my 11th year and to be a seven-time All-Star and to have this experience here where a lot of the people that saw me kind of blossom from the beginning, for them to see me at this point and at this level of my career and as a man, it’s pretty special,” Lillard said. “It was perfect to be able to do that.”
from The Salt Lake Tribune https://ift.tt/08efusH
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