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As he enters his 13th season in the NBA, Milwaukee Bucks star point guard Damian Lillard knows the one thing missing from his stellar career is a championship.
However, Lillard doesn’t agree that he needs a title to solidify his legacy, telling The Athletic’s Eric Nehm that his skills and accolades should speak for themselves.
“You would think if I won it, there would be nothing that they could say, but I think people know how f–king good I am,” Lillard said. “People know — at least the people who know what they’re watching — or I wouldn’t have been on the 75th anniversary team. If you’re talking about fans and people that are on TV just randomly saying their opinion, it’s like, ‘All right.'”
Lillard is in his second year in Milwaukee after being traded from the Portland Trail Blazers last offseason. While pairing him with two-time NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo appeared to be a championship-caliber combination, the Bucks’ title hopes were derailed by injuries down the stretch of the season, and they were eliminated from the playoffs by the Indiana Pacers in the first round.
Lillard remains motivated to continue chasing an elusive championship ring, but he made it clear that he’s not trying to prove anything to his naysayers.
“And if we win it, all I would do is just put the people who go back and forth in a position where it’s like, what the f— can you say? I think that’s it, but for me, I don’t think I have to prove it to nobody,” he said. “This is more for myself, honestly. I just want to be like, ‘Yeah, I’ve done all of these things that I just listed to you, but I won a championship too.'”
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