The Portland Trail Blazers are off to a slow start this season, but Damian Lillard is doing all he can to turn around the team’s fortunes.
The Portland Trail Blazers ended a four-game losing streak last Sunday night, with a 124-113 overtime win over the Atlanta Hawks. Damian Lillard again led the way, with 30 points (8-for-17 from the floor; 3-for-9 from 3-point range), seven rebounds and six assists.
Last Friday night, Lillard had a career-high 60 points with five assists and four rebounds in a four-point loss to the Brooklyn Nets. He scored at least 30 points in four of five games, while averaging 36.8 points, 6.0 assists, 4.8 rebounds and 1.2 steals per game over that span.
Portland lost for the fifth time in six games Tuesday night, 107-99 to the Sacramento Kings. Lillard had a team-high 27 points (6-for-10 from the floor, 13-for-14 from the line) with five assists, four rebounds and two steals.
Injuries have been an issue for the Trail Blazers, along with the struggles of CJ McCollum before the last two games (20-plus points in each, while shooting 50 percent from the floor in total). So Lillard has taken on a slightly bigger load than he already had, as Portland has labored to a 4-7 start this season.
Through 11 games, Lilliard is averaging per-game career-highs in field goal attempts (21.2), field goals made (10.2), 3-point attempts (9.7) and 3-pointers made (3.8), over nearly a career-high in minutes per game (38.5). His field goal percentage is a career-best by a good margin (49.8 percent), and his 3-point proficiency is close to a career-best (39.3 percent). His true shooting percentage (65.4 percent) is by far a career-best, and his free throw attempt rate is also a career-best (39.1 percent).
So Lillard is shooting more than he ever has, but not at the price of efficiency. His turnover rates (2.9 per game; 10.5 percent) are also not elevated, and in the latter case it’s the second-lowest mark of his career. A look at his shot attempt percentages shows a dramatic drop in him taking the most inefficient shot in basketball.
Last season, 13.2 percent of Lillard’s field goal attempts came from between 16-feet out and the 3-point line (via Basketball-Reference). This year, that rate is down to 6.4 percent.
So far this year Lillard has traded those long-2s for 3-pointers to account for most of that difference. Last year 41.9 percent of his field-goal attempts came from beyond the arc, compared to 45.9 percent this year. He’s also already hit an absurd 16-of-34 on 3-pointers of 28 feet or longer.
Lillard is obviously a good enough player to be allowed some minor inefficiencies here or there. But with more demanded of him early this season, even as the Trail Blazers are losing more than they expect to or would like to, he’s tightened things up a little and found some new levels as a shooter.