2019 Portland Trail Blazers Exit Interviews: Damian Lillard

Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard was the fifth player to take the podium at the team’s annual exit interviews on Tuesday, following their season-ending loss to the Golden State Warriors on Monday night. The face of the franchise was optimistic about the team’s playoff run and its future while speaking to the assembled media.

On the team’s Western Conference Finals run:

I thought it was a special year for us. Since the roster turnover, each year we’ve come back with the right attitude, we’ve been able to stick together through a lot of adversity. I think what we’ve hung our hats on, what we’ve believed in, our culture, the togetherness...we’ve been able to truly build on that and I think we should be encouraged.

On what made this team special:

I just think our ability to stay together. Over the course of an NBA season since I’ve been in the league there’s been so many storylines...now you’ve got social media, and anybody can be a writer and they can post anything online. You’ve got people with 10 Twitter followers posting as if they’re a media member. And people actually retweet it, and comment on it and make a discussion of stuff like that and then it could end up on SportsCenter...you have stuff like that, now, so it just makes it harder for teams to stay together.

On Anfernee Simons:

...I think he has a lot of qualities about him that make me believe if he just keeps working and keeps developing...I think when I’m on my way out, y’all gonna be talking to him every game.

You can watch the full interview here: