Hey listeners of the lead starting five, I want to tell you about the old man in the
three podcast hosted by former NBA sharpshooter and Duke legend JJ Redick.
Now if you're a true hoops fan, you know there's no better time of year than the NBA
playoffs.
That's why I'm excited to play a clip from their latest episode with Damian Lillard,
where he breaks down ring culture in the NBA, his shooting mechanics, and more.
And Damian's not the only one either.
Each week, JJ hosts stars from all around the NBA like Steph Curry, Luca Doncic and Kevin
Durant.
With JJ and his co-host Tommy Alter, you'll also hear expert analysis, in-depth stats and
previews of the biggest games.
You're about to hear a clip from the old man in the three.
While you're listening, make sure to follow the old man in the three on Amazon music or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Download the Amazon music app today.
Welcome to the old man in the three with JJ Redick and Tommy Alter.
This is episode 150.
Damian Lillard, Tommy, we had Damon for the very first episode of the old man in the three
back in August of 2020.
Not much has changed that apparently.
I'm still forgetting my SD card for my personal task cam recorder.
So I apologize for this audio to start the podcast.
I'm also recording on tell room, which is very, very much the same.
I feel like we still have the exact same Zoom shenanigans.
Like nothing has gotten better.
Nothing has ever been.
We did a great deal with Amazon.
We did all of these things.
We hired Kylie who has fixed every other part of our company and we still have the same
Zoom problems.
It is weird though.
It's weird we've done 150.
This particular episode with Dame, I know I say this sometimes, but I really mean this.
This is one of the best episodes we have done.
There's a lot of high level basketball talk.
We'll talk about his streak that he's been on this season and particularly in the calendar
year of 2023.
Then we talk some existential stuff about the way athletes are covered and what athletes
should and shouldn't want out of their careers.
He's the perfect guy to have this conversation with.
He's so level headed mature.
When I got done with the episode, when we got done with the recording and I rushed back
to get on the train to go back to Brooklyn, the word that kept popping in my head was
refreshing.
There's something about Dame, the way he approaches things, the way he talks with his
perspective.
It's all very refreshing.
All right, let's get to our awesome conversation with Portland Terribleizer superstar, Damian
Lilland.
What else has changed for you?
What is your perspective on where we're at right now and what the differences are from
when you first came in?
I would say the biggest difference is how do I put it?
Say it.
I'm going to say it.
No, that ain't the problem.
I would say what's the word I'm looking for?
When I came in the league, I put it like this.
When I came in the league, Jason Kidd was starting to put her nicks in Grant Hill and
Kurt Thomas and Kenyon Martin, it was like real older dudes in the league.
I played with Jared Jeffers.
He was 40 or 41 or something.
Earl Watson was 40 when I played with him.
I played with real vets and it was a lot of stuff that I learned about being a point guard
or how to lead from Mo Williams and Earl Watson and Jared Jeffers.
They didn't even play.
It was just the way that they showed me how stuff had to be done.
I had no choice but to respect the game.
I didn't have the word I was looking for is entitlement.
When I came in the league, you had to earn not just what you get from the team or the
respect you had to earn your space on the team.
It was no you to six pick of the draft.
It's your team.
What is this your team stuff?
You know what I'm saying?
I think now the biggest difference is you don't have that veteran presence.
You got players who are more talented than ever coming into the league.
They get picked one, two, three, four, five.
They're making more money than those picks ever made.
Not only that, now you're giving them the keys to the franchise.
There's nobody there to really let them know.
You super talented but you got to earn stuff around you.
You got to earn your way.
They come in and everything is just giving to them from the beginning so that affects
how they are the way they play.
They play for themselves.
They play for stats.
They think that they're LeBron James when they make an all-star game or you know what
I'm saying?
They get a max contract.
It's just different.
I don't know how to completely put it together but the NBA I play in now is not the NBA that
I came into and I expected to evolve.
Everything is constantly changing but I feel like I play for the love of the game.
I want the competition.
I want to know what it feels like to win.
I want to see my teammates do well.
I want to see my teammates get paid.
I enjoy the bonding part of it.
We spend more time with each other than anybody but now it's like that don't count.
Regular season don't count.
Get a ring.
You know what I'm saying?
Like who?
This guy is the MVP.
This guy did this.
He the first, it's like, bro, what is this stuff?
What is this?
You know what I'm saying?
I don't want to make it about my situation but I was talking after a game a week ago.
I was just asking me about a game but to win a ring.
I'm like, bro, I don't need to prove to y'all that I want to win a ring.
Why the hell do I play?
I don't need to prove that to y'all but we cannot keep acting.
While I understand we play the win championships, we all want to win a championship.
We can't keep acting like nothing matters like the rest of the journey doesn't matter.
We can't keep doing that.
You know what I'm saying?
So I feel like there are so many ways that the league is different.
There are so many ways and I think about it all the time where I'm like, man, I just
don't, I don't know if I can just play a long, long time because I don't enjoy what the NBA
as a whole is becoming.
All right.
I think you make some great points and there's a couple of things that I sort of want to
unpack there.
So you're talking about two things here.
It's the culture within the NBA and then there's the culture around the NBA and the
discourse around the NBA.
I actually want to go back in a second to the culture within the NBA and your guy Nate
who we talked about recently on the podcast.
I think his commentary on this on Twitter has been spot on.
But since you brought it up, I you've been asked a million times about not leaving, but
I wanted to make an observation.
This is what I think gets lost a little bit in this discourse around ring culture and
around players' careers and the decisions they make within their careers.
To me, it's what you want, what I want out of my career versus what other people want
for you.
And regardless of what you decide to do, by the way, you're going to be criticized.
I can give you multiple examples off the top of my head for sure where someone couldn't
win a ring and they go team up with a superstar, another superstar.
And when they win it, it gets discredited.
So the discourse or they go and don't win it.
Yeah.
And now they look crazy.
And now they talk worse.
You've had some quotes about that as well.
And I always look, I think every time you've ever been asked about this, your thoughts around
it are very insightful.
They're very thoughtful.
And I've always respected them.
And the part about the journey is so huge.
The thing for me has always been, and Jason and I talked about this yesterday, the thing
for me has always been how poised and how calm and how seemingly unbothered you are by
all the noise.
How do you maintain a level of sanity within this discourse?
Because I have a real life.
Like, I think that's the best way to put it.
Like, I don't live my life as Damien Lillard.
Like, I go home, I play with my kids.
Like, I play with my kids.
I go to my mom's house.
I hang out with my cousins, you know what I mean?
Like, I don't, I have a life.
I have, I talk to my grandmother on the phone and, you know, my uncle calls me and we talk
on the phone all night about just regular stuff, you know what I'm saying?
So like, I have a life that's stable and is not based upon who I am as an NBA player.
Like, I have real friends, you know, like my best friend comes to Portland and he works
a job where like he can work from home and he'll come stay with me for it.
You know, he's single.
And he'll come stay for a few weeks.
He'll book it one way and we have a real friendship.
So like, I don't sit here and just think about, I need to leave all the time.
And I'm not sitting there watching TV and hearing everything they got to say like, Oh,
I need to.
I probably should do this or I probably should do that.
I'm like, when my career is over, you are not about to be talking about me.
Y'all going to be talking about Luca Donchich, Jomah Rant, Jason Tatum or whoever, when
I'm done playing, you know, they'll talk about me when they say who had the most 40 point
games or 50 point games or Portland, whatever.
But like, why am I going to be sitting here overly concerned with everything that every
person has to say about me when they don't know my life?
Like, they don't think about me when they get off of that camera, you know, like, and
when I'm done playing, they won't think about me like they don't think about you.
No, no, no, well, they think about me in other ways, but yeah, I'm just saying they
don't think about you.
They don't think about Michael Jordan.
So so why do we think about me?
So why would I be concerned with it?
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