How good can nine-time All-Star point guard Damian Lillard, the prodigal son, be for the Portland Trail Blazers after he returns from his Achilles tendon rupture?
The 6-foot-2 Weber State product has already ruled himself out for the balance of the 2025-26 NBA season. Pundits have openly speculated that the 35-year-old won’t be anywhere near the prolific-scoring standout he had been pre-injury.
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Lillard has struggled to finish seasons healthy in recent years. Prior to the Achilles tear he suffered in the 2025 playoffs, Lillard had been grappling with a calf injury that knocked him out for multiple months. But in his 58 available regular season bouts for the 2024-25 Milwaukee Bucks at the time, Lillard averaged an impressive 24.9 points on .448/.376/.921 shooting splits, 7.1 assists, 4.7 rebounds, and 1.2 steals a night.
After Milwaukee general manager Jon Horst opted to stretch and waive Lillard’s remaining contract this summer (Horst used the extra cap space to steal Myles Turner from the Indiana Pacers), Lillard returned to the team that drafted him way back in 2012, the Trail Blazers. He inked a team-friendly three-year, $41.6 million deal. The agreement has a player option for 2027-28, and given Lillard’s anticipated absence for all of this season, it’s essentially a deferred one-year contract.
How good can he be? Will it be “Dame Time” again for a Portland squad on the rise in 2026-27?
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I recently sat down with the one and only Shea Serrano, author behind the brand-new bestseller Expensive Basketball, to talk all things Lillard. Serrano devotes an entire chapter to breaking down one of the signature moments of Lillard’s playing career: his game- and series-winning buzzer beater to send the James Harden/Dwight Howard iteration of the Houston Rockets packing in the first round of the 2014 playoffs.
For Expensive Basketball, Serrano takes pains to break down the special hoops moments and players that have defined his fandom of the sport. Sometimes it’s a player, sometimes it’s a play, but it’s always a one-of-a-kind read, accented by some great illustrations courtesy of Ian Klarer.
“When somebody’s telling you about a thing that they love, it’s always this feeling, this emotion first. ‘I was in the arena, the ball dropped in, everybody went crazy.’ It’s always something like that,” Serrano explained. “And that to me was just super interesting, and I thought, ‘Oh, okay, I’m going to do a basketball book, and I want it to be that. Let’s figure out a way to write about the basketball stuff that made you feel something.'”
Lillard’s Post-Injury Fit in Portland
This reporter was concerned that Lillard’s presence could detract from backcourt minutes and touches that will need to be found for another 35-year-old All-Star point guard, current starter Jrue Holiday, and high-upside former lottery pick Scoot Henderson, the No. 3 selection in the 2023 NBA Draft.
Ultimately, Serrano is confident that Lillard will find a way to fit in alongside Holiday and Henderson.
“I think Damian Lillard will always be a net positive on any basketball team that he’s on — No. 1 because everybody loves him,” Lillard said. “He’s just a good, cool person to have on your team. People sort of gravitate to him, he has that energy about him. But No. 2, this is a different time to come back from an Achilles injury. We’ve seen the difference between him coming back versus when Kobe [Bryant] came back from his, it feels like a hundred years ago.”
Bryant was never the same after rupturing his Achilles tendon in April 2013. Recurrent health issues elsewhere began to limit his availability, but his efficiency cratered and he lost a lot of the athletic burst that helped him drive past defenders.
In recent vintage, however, players like 15-time All-Star Houston Rockets forward Kevin Durant have been able to look virtually the same after their own Achilles tears. Can Lillard be as fortuitous?
“Now you go, ‘Oh this is going to be sucky for a year, but when he comes back, he will be pretty close to where he was when he went down.’ But also — obviously, he’s in the book — I’m a big Lillard guy. I find him to be a very captivating basketball player,” Serrano noted, alluding to his Lillard chapter. “I find him to be one of the game’s great winners, which is curious because he’s only won [a playoff series] a couple of times, but he has this thing about him. I mention that to say I’m rooting for him. Maybe I’m possibly wrong, but I don’t think so.”
Lillard As Stephen Curry
An Oakland native, Lillard’s career has alternately paralleled and intersected the run of 11-time All-NBA Golden State Warriors superstar point guard Stephen Curry.
Both are score-first point guards who shoot an historic amount of triples — Curry had connected on a record 4,116 made regular season triples heading into Friday night’s game against the Trail Blazers, while Lillard’s 2,804 made treys are the fourth-most ever. Both led their teams deep within the Western Conference playoffs, although Curry has made six NBA Finals (winning four) to Lillard’s zero.
But Lillard has been saddled with some tougher roster and health luck. He’s seen his first superstar teammates, LaMarcus Aldridge and Brandon Roy, exit stage left thanks to free agency and injury, respectively. He hasn’t ever played with teammates at the level of the Curry/Kevin Durant/Klay Thompson/Draymond Green Warriors.
If the two players were swapped in for each other, and Lillard had played for his hometown team this whole time (Curry is two years Lillard’s senior but has been in the league for three extra seasons, so in theory this switch would happen from 2012 on), would he have enjoyed better postseason luck? Would he be Stephen Curry?
“I think that Steph and Damian Lillard play completely different types of basketball. I know they are both score-first guards, I get that, but they just play different,” Serrano offered. “It’s very easy to see, you watch them go out there. It looks different when Steph doesn’t have the ball in his hands versus when Damian Lillard doesn’t have the ball in his hands.”
Even today, Curry is happy to operate off-ball while Draymond Green or Jimmy Butler orchestrate the Warriors’ offense. Last year in Milwaukee, the fit between Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo was a bit more tenuous, as both thrive with the rock in their hands.
“I think if you switched those two guys, I don’t think Lillard would be as successful in Steph Curry’s spot, but I do think Steph Curry would be equally as successful in Damian Lillard’s spot,” Serrano concluded.
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