Damian Lillard is Officially Underrated

More than a year removed from playing a regular season basketball game in the NBA, Damian Lillard is set to suit up for the Portland Trail Blazers' season opener on Wednesday and remind everybody just how good he is.

At 36 years old and coming off a significant injury, Lillard is still one of the most impactful veterans in the entire league. Could it be a slow start for him, both from a conditioning and minutes standpoint early in the season? Certainly. But by the later parts of the season and into the playoffs, assuming the Blazers can get to that stage, he's going to be a huge piece of what this team does.

The last time Lillard played in the regular season, during the 2024-25 campaign with the Milwaukee Bucks, he averaged 24.9 points and 7.1 assists per game while knocking down 37.6% of his nine 3-point attempts per contest. And the Blazers don't necessarily need that level of production from him this season. That's not going to be his role.

Instead, he's going to be a complementary scoring piece who can space the floor and really enhance Portland's offense. He'll still have the ability to put the ball on the floor and create for himself, but if he can thrive in more of an off-ball role, he's going to feast on the perimeter. Having a player with his shooting ability and offensive versatility alongside the other talented pieces on this roster should make Portland that much more dangerous.

But we've gotten to a point where, when the Blazers are discussed, Lillard's name frequently isn't even brought up. And it feels like we've officially reached the point where he's become underrated.

To be fair, basketball fans and analysts are often prisoners of the moment. There's plenty of recency bias that influences the way players are viewed, and it's been a long time since Lillard played meaningful NBA basketball. Add in his age and the severity of his injury, and it's understandable why expectations might be lower than they once were.

But throughout the preseason, Lillard started to remind people just how good he still is. In Portland's preseason finale against the Golden State Warriors on Friday, he finished with 23 points, providing another glimpse of the offensive firepower he can bring to this team.

He'll have an even greater opportunity to prove himself once the regular season gets underway. And while Lillard isn't expected to return to an All-NBA level, that doesn't mean he can't still be one of the better offensive veterans in the league.

At this point, it feels like Lillard simply isn't getting the respect he deserves. And if his preseason performances were any indication, he could be on the verge of reminding everyone exactly why he's been one of the NBA's most dangerous offensive players for more than a decade.