Milwaukee Bucks guard Damian Lillard is ready to smell the roses in emotional return to Portland tonight
PORTLAND, Ore. – Over a hundred years ago Madame Caroline Testoutrose's bushes lined the streets of Portland, the bright, light pink coloring and sweet fragrance giving the port city the sobriquet, “City of Roses.”
The 4.5-acre International Rose Test Garden helped protect European species during the first World War, and the Portland Rose Festival has been held for over a century. For 54 years, the city has been home to the Trail Blazers. For many years, their arena was dubbed the Rose Garden.
It’s the city where Damian Lillard played 11 years before he was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks on Sept. 27. He returned late Monday night after the Bucks played the Denver Nuggets – his family still lives in town – and he plays his old team for the first time on Wednesday.
He is ready to receive his flowers.
Damian Lillard welcomed back to Portland
On a drizzly, cool Tuesday afternoon, Adidas employees played soccer on an artificial surfaced pitch in the athletic apparels Portland campus. Nearly 1,000 others were all fitted in black and white hoodies, with “Always Home” screen printed across the front and Lillard’s signature logo (an uppercase “D” mixed with the number zero – which also represents the letter “O” for his hometown of Oakland, California.
The company signed Lillard in 2012 when he was the No. 6 pick in the draft, and his first signature shoe was unveiled in 2015.
The multi-billion-dollar company welcomed him back to its campus in the city to dedicate its basketball court to him – the first time it has put an athlete’s name on any of its physical properties around the world.
Employees waved photos of him and pictures of his brand logo. A tribute video was played, highlighting his career and off court community work. A DJ played his songs, recorded under the stage name Dame D.O.L.L.A. and adidas executives shared stories of their professional relationship before naming the space the “Damian Lillard Always Home Court.” Lillard signed the hardwood and will help redesign and modernize the space.
It was just the warmup.
Wednesday night’s game between the Bucks and Trail Blazers is what everyone has been waiting for since his trade to the Bucks on Sept. 27.
“It’s going to be crazy I feel like,” Bucks forward MarJon Beauchamp, a Yakima, Washington, native told the Journal Sentinel. “He did a lot for Portland. Man, I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like. I know everyone in the city been talking about it. Definitely gonna be a great experience, just to see that.
“We are human. We all go through things. We do appreciate it. Just the love and appreciation. I know Dame’s been going on with a lot in life, so I think this is going to bring him up and definitely bring his spirits up. Definitely need that good energy towards him so he can be his best him. I think it’s going to be great.”
The rest of Lillard’s Bucks teammate are just as excited and have an idea of what it might be like at the Moda Center. They’re happy for him, excited to see and hear what that return means to Lillard and the fans.
Brook Lopez is the current teammate who would know that best.
Brooklyn traded him to the Los Angeles Lakers in 2017 after nine seasons, one all-star berth and a franchise record 10,444 points. He played his first game at the Barclays Center as an opponent on Nov. 3, 2017. He scored a season-high 34 points.
“It is a little special, obviously, it is a different one,” Lopez told the Journal Sentinel. “It’s a bit weird, but it’s fun, too. I can’t imagine for someone like Dame, with everything he’s meant to Portland, what Portland means to him, what the city’s done for him and he’s done for the city and all that. It’s going to be an incredible environment. It’s going to be great.”
Lopez is still warmly welcomed back to Brooklyn. He still sees some of the same faces. The Nets play his highlight videos around the arena every time the Bucks come to town. He’ll have his number hung in the rafters when he retires.
But he knows he only experienced a sliver of what Lillard will.
“I can’t imagine I’ll have seen anyone to the level of Dame coming home to Portland this coming game,” Lopez said with a smile. “That level…it’s going to be pretty crazy. I’m excited to be a part of that.”
CJ McCollum has a better idea.
The New Orleans point guard played eight and a half seasons alongside Lillard in Portland and is the franchise’s No. 5 all-time leading scorer. He was traded to the Pelicans on Feb. 8, 2022 and played his first game in the Moda Center on March 1, 2023.
He received a thunderous, 90-second ovation.
Lillard, still a Trail Blazer, was waiting to play his former teammate. He said he almost got emotional himself and that the game almost didn’t start on time because the roar just continued.
“It’s really emotional,” McCollum said quietly. “It’s a different experience. A lot of emotions.”
McCollum played 564 games for the Trail Blazers alongside Lillard and averaged over 20 points per game in their last six and a half seasons together. He’s without a doubt a fan favorite. He knows Lillard will be anxious. He said his drive to the arena will feel different. Memories will rush back. That it will be weird for him to go to the visitors’ locker room instead of the home quarters.
And he knows what his friend will experience.
“It’s an honor to be able to be remembered the way he is,” McCollum said. “But it’s crazy to be recognized and kind of given your flowers while you still play. He’ll appreciate. He’ll realize the impact the city had on him and the impact he had on that city as well.”
Damian Lillard is open to his emotions in return to Portland
The Bucks point guard stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. Wearing a knit black hat, he kept the same stoic visage and distant, yet steady, gaze that is his trademark – even when he sends opponents home with a loss following a game-winning shot.
He clearly remembers how he felt, what the arena felt like, during McCollum’s return. And while he cannot predict his emotions when they come for him, he is open to them – whatever they may be.
“I just don’t fake nothing, man – if I feel it, I feel it,” he told the Journal Sentinel. “I’m not a big a crier. Like, I’ve cried at like family member’s funerals that I was really close with and when people that I love to death are like hurt by something, or something happened.
"That’s the type of stuff that makes me really emotional, because I’m just passionate and I care about my people. And I love playing there. I love living there. I still live there. I’m tight with all those people. I have real relationship with them. It’s not about me playing on that team or nothing. They’re a part of my life and my kid’s life and stuff like that. I think that will make it more emotional for that reason.
“I don’t fake nothing like that. If I feel a way about it, you’re going to see how I feel about it. But more times than not I’m able to take things in and just kind of take it in stride and just let it be what it is.”
He knew the day was coming, but he wasn’t looking forward to it in the way that say, the NBA is – by moving it to a nationally televised spot on ESPN despite the Trail Blazers 14-33 record. Rather he looked forward to sleeping in his home, his own bed, for a few days. He looked forward to being around his children, his parents, his cousins, friends.
He’s looking forward to giving flowers, too. Like to arena staff. Trail Blazers employees. Former coaches and players. He’s looking forward to seeing fans he knows by face and by name because of the 769 games he played there.
Lillard is looking forward to whatever his former team might do to acknowledge his career there, which includes six franchise records. He was named one of the NBA’s top 75 players in league history while wearing red, black and white.
“I didn’t leave Portland ‘cause I just hated everybody and I was miserable and all that, you know?” he said. “It was a hard decision for me to say alright, I’ve got to move on. And the one and only reason that I left… I love my living situation. I love my family being there. I love playing in that arena. I love the coaches that I played for. Like, I loved everything about it. The people that I went to work with every day.
"But I just knew that where the organization was at this time wasn’t in a position to do what needed to be done to win a championship. And at this stage of my career I just wanted an opportunity to do that, which we have here. That’s all it was about.
"So that made it hard. Going back, I won’t be thinking about oh, this happened or that happened – it just is what it is, you know?”
He is looking forward to smelling the roses.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Damian Lillard is ready to smell the roses in emotional return to Portland
