Consider this the first of a bunch of award Damian Lillard could be racking up.
The Portland Trailblazers celebrated rookie won the All-Star Saturday Taco Bells Skills Competition. He seemed to embody the old John Wooden mantra of “be quick, don’t hurry.”
“I think the biggest thing for me is to try to be too cool and speed through it, but take my time with the passes and shots,” Lillard said.
Lillard seemed to move more quickly than many of the competitors through an obstacle course where the guards had to make some layups, some chest passes, a bounce pass, and dribble around some cutout defenders.
Some guys had good nights and good times, like Brandon Knight who had a time of 32.2 seconds through the course, but he fell to Jrue Holiday’s 29.3 that was best in the East (and that got Holiday in the two-man finals). Jeff Teague struggled his way to a 49.4 second result. It wasn’t pretty.
For the West, hometown boy Jeremy Lin didn’t rush or hurry and ended up with a time of 35.8 seconds, playing at an under control pace. Defending champ Tony Parker missed all five of his shots from the top of the key and looked terrible, a 48.7 seconds. I mean, better than Teague, but unimpressive.
Lillard had a time of 28.7 to easily advance to the finals. Where he pretty much trashed Holiday who missed a few of the top of the key shots.
“I’ve played basketball a long time and I grew up in a tough city,” Lillard said after his win. “I’ve always been comfortable with myself and confident with myself. So coming into this season I was confident and coming into this competition, also.”
Lillard gets a trophy. The future Rookie of the Year is going to rack up some more in the next few months.
