You don’t need me to tell you that Damian Lillard is the best thing going in the NBA. Unanimous Bubble MVP. Led the Portland Trail Blazers to a playoff spot. Making shots from the Florida Keys. Every corner of the internet is bowing at the Damian Lillard altar, and rightly so. However, most of these Damian Lillard apostles come from the nation’s biggest media centers: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago. That grants solid basketball analysis, but obscures the fact that Lillard is making an impact far greater than his play on the court. To truly understand the importance of Dame Lillard, you have to get that perspective from the Bay Area.
For example, if you asked someone outside of the Bay to pick a Damian Lillard highlight from Game One against the Los Angeles Lakers, most of them would point you to the deep three in Anthony Davis’ face. While that shot was understandably jaw-dropping, most Bay Area watchers would point you to what happened afterwards. As the arena blared Too $hort’s “Blow the Whistle”, Lillard took a moment to break from his normally stoic character to dance along. The media’s taken some notice of this, but I can’t help but feel that their coverage has been patronizing. Aww, how cute. He did a dance.
To truly appreciate that moment, you need to have some basic knowledge of Bay Area hip-hop. I don’t claim to be an expert on the genre, most of which originates from the East Bay (which I have never lived in). However, I can confidently say that if someone hands you an AUX cord at a Bay Area party, there are three songs that are guaranteed hits. Whether conscious or not, everyone who listens to hip-hop from Santa Cruz to Sacramento knows all the words to Mac Dre’s “Fellin Myself”, E-40’s “Tell Me When to Go”, and of course, “Blow the Whistle”. In an area with huge wealth disparities, the communal nature of music plays a tremendous role in maintaining a sense of local identity. To see Lillard acknowledge that song in the middle of a game is to see a man doing his hometown proud.
Of course, Tuesday’s game wasn’t the only time that Lillard repped the Bay Area. Lillard is Oakland’s native son through and through. He hosts an annual picnic in Oakland with haircuts and free food, based on his desire to erase the violence associated with picnics of his childhood. He’s helped rebuild Oakland High School’s gym, and regularly drops by to give rap concerts. His Player’s Tribune article lays out just how dedicated he is to Brookfield village. To almost any Golden State Warriors fan, the fact that Damian Lillard plays for the Blazers is irrelevant. He’s a Bay Area hero.
And boy, this is a time where the Bay Area could use a hero. Forget that the Warriors missed out on the playoffs, 550,000 people lost their jobs in April here. There are thousands of homeless people trying to find shelter in the midst of a pandemic. Wildfires have begun to rage across nine counties, so much so that if you walk outside you can see pieces of ash floating in the air. There’s no relief quite like turning on basketball to see an Oakland native crushing the hopes of the Lakers, who for decades would routinely wipe the floor with the Dubs. It also doesn’t hurt his cause that Lillard plays similarly to Stephen Curry, who might be the one basketball player even more beloved than Dame in the Bay.
Side note about Curry, I’ve seen a lot of firestorms from media pundits demanding a declaration of which one of them is the better player. Seeing this from Bay Area writers especially worries me, as it completely discards the fact that both of them can just be great basketball players, appreciated in their own time. These are two players who, despite possessing similar games, play in radically different systems on radically different teams. Comparing them grants us nothing except for making it more difficult to appreciate both of their spectacular contributions to the game of basketball and the world at large.
Acknowledging how significant Damian Lillard has been to the Bay Area is crucial to raising awareness of just how much of a platform playing in the NBA can bring. Covering his hot streak as merely a string of good games obscures his work off the court to make the Bay Area a better place. That’s a huge missed opportunity, as detailing his efforts can pose major benefits. It exposes readers and viewers to ways they can impact their own communities. The organizations that Lillard works with can gain more publicity. It shows viewers that take issue with players kneeling for the national anthem that those players care immensely about their country and communities, and shines a light on the conditions and systems that have led to them kneeling in the first place. Ultimately, Damian Lillard can serve as much more than just a great ball player. It’s up to us to look towards home and allow him to be.
You can check out Lillard’s RESPECT campaign here, as well as the Brian Grant foundation, which Lillard also works closely with.
