Milwaukee Bucks news: It’s no surprise that Damian Lillard took a ton of backlash when he shockingly demanded a trade away from the Portland Trail Blazers. Most folks saw this man as a lifer who was following the footsteps of the likes of Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki, and the other legends who spent their entire careers with the same team. As it turns out, even Dame’s loyalty to Portland had its limits.
New Milwaukee Bucks Star Damian Lillard Reacts to Slander
For his part, however, Dame isn’t really sweating it. He knew all along that his decision was going to have its repercussions. He has no regrets.
Lillard explained that the backlash is just part of the game, and it’s something that he is willing to live with now that he’s taken his talents to Milwaukee:
“Everybody has their time where you gon’ get some backlash, you gon’ get some slander,” he said on a recent appearance on SiriusXM NBA Radio, via Advait Jajodia of The Sports Rush. “Whether that be, cause you did something negative or you did something that people don’t agree with. Nobody is gonna be loved all the time and I can accept that cause I’m strong… I think, you can’t pretend for 11 years, that’s hard to do… It is what it is. I don’t think it was a secret that Miami was where I wanted to go when I asked for a trade.”
He did not get his wish of joining the Miami Heat. However, I’m certain that Lillard is still happy with how things ended up for him.
Damian Lillard Speaks Out on His Image
Perhaps the biggest reason why Lillard isn’t affected by all the criticism is because he doesn’t really care too much about what people think of him. It’s not that he doesn’t give a damn about all; it’s just that the seven-time All-Star just doesn’t put too much stock into it:
“I think that the beauty of my image is that I’ve never tried to have an image. What you see is what you get,” he said. “You can go back to anything I ever said or anything I ever did. Whether it was on camera or off camera… I was looking at a lot of people reporting and a lot of people saying things that I literally don’t know. So they don’t know me… because they don’t know me at all, they just assume that this is another case of somebody is disgruntle, they doing this behind closed doors, they saying this to this person.”
This is who Damian Lillard has always been and this is the exact type of mindset he will bring with him to Milwaukee — for better or for worse.
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