In his own words, Damian Lillard said that his first season with the Milwaukee Bucks was a “rollercoaster.” The eight-time summed it up perfectly after going through a whole lot of ups and downs in his debut campaign with the Bucks.
Apart from proving to the basketball world that he is still one of the top point guards in the entire NBA, what Dame is most proud of is the way he faced adversity throughout the season.
Milwaukee Bucks News: Damian Lillard Gets Real on Difficult Season
Lillard acknowledged the fact that his 2023-24 campaign was anything but smooth sailing. However, this is also exactly why he is proud of himself for the way he handled it all:
“It was a lot for me to fight through, but I take a lot of pride in standing tall when things don’t go as planned or go how I would like them to go,” he said, via Jim Owczarski of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I always want to look back and tell myself that as a man. When I didn’t play well, and things didn’t go how I might’ve expected it to go when I was going through some things, whether people knew about it or not, I stood tall in it. I never made an excuse or nothing like that. It was a long year of that for me. Just a lot of growth. A lot of getting used to new things.”
Apart from adjusting to a new team and playing alongside a superstar teammate, Lillard also went through a nasty divorce and custody battle with his estranged wife. Health also became a concern for Dame, particularly at the tail end of the season as he battled through an Achilles injury throughout their first-round series against the Indiana Pacers.
All the adversity is what makes Damian Lillard who he is, though. This man has been through a lot in his life and in his career, and as he said, he’s stood tall through it all.
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