Damian Lillard reveals his Navy Seal redemption plan

In the preseason, it’s common to hear speeches about a changing era, a new cycle; narratives of comebacks, redemption, a clean slate; promises of improvement and progress... good intentions, in short. Once the games begin, though, each team ends up, for better or worse, where it belongs, as always. But certainly, if there’s one player who can approach the new season with a sense of revenge, with a spirit of redemption, it’s Damian Lillard.

What went wrong for Lillard?

Lillard, now 34 years old, was an eight-time All-Star last season, his first with the Milwaukee Bucks after spending eleven years with the Portland Trail Blazers; a franchise player without a ring, a megastar who was put through the grinder of a bad ending at what had been his team since the draft… and could have been for his entire career. But those happy endings often unravel, many times because the player wants to try somewhere else, to give it a shot where they haven’t already used up so much of their ammunition, and franchises reach points of no return where rebuilding becomes the top option. Sometimes, the only one.

Lillard, as we know, requested a trade and made it so clear that Miami Heat was his desired destination that a deal sending him to Florida always seemed the most likely outcome. That was until the Bucks, eager to convince Giannis Antetokounmpo that they were still a team aiming high, entered the scene. Just before the season started, they landed Lillard, and it worked: Giannis then signed a $186 million, three-year extension.

From the start, Lillard and Giannis formed a supreme duo from a media standpoint. But on the court, things didn’t go so well: chemistry issues at the beginning of the season, a coaching change, role players with too low a profile, a porous defense – to put it mildly – and a slew of injuries. The season turned into a nightmare, with the Bucks eliminated in the first round by the Indiana Pacers, sending the 2021 champions back to the drawing board. Lillard’s stats dropped from 32.3 points per game with 46.3% shooting and 37.1% from three in his last year in Oregon, to 24.3 points, 42.4% shooting, and 35.4% from three in a frustrating first season in Wisconsin. He struggled physically, lacked his usual impact in clutch moments, didn’t find a way to maximize his partnership with Giannis, was lost (even more so than usual) on defense, and endured a terrible personal period: in Milwaukee instead of Miami, where he wanted to play and live, dealing with a difficult divorce, far from his children and the West Coast where he had grown up (in Oakland) and lived for the past eleven years (in Portland).

“I would place last year among the hardest of my life. It was probably the toughest of them all,” Lillard now says in a very candid, and thus very interesting, interview with Melissa Rohlin (FOX Sports): “I wasn’t traded in the middle of the summer or anything like that; it was right before training camp, just a couple of days before. I didn’t know where I was going to be, I was getting divorced, I was going to be separated from my three kids and didn’t yet have an agreement on how or when I’d be able to see them… A lot to handle and digest while, at the same time, I had to perform on the court. Very tough.”

Time for Lillard and Antetokounmpo part two

Now, it’s year two with Giannis on a Bucks team looking to be relevant again in an Eastern Conference dominated by the Celtics, with the Sixers as the eternal wildcard (in their many forms around Joel Embiid) and the Knicks as the new rising power: “We can be one of the best duos in the NBA. We don’t even need to do anything special. It’s about combining what makes him dominant with what makes me dominant. Being aggressive, understanding each situation, how to create advantages… Last year we improved as the season went on, and now it’s going to be even better.”

Lillard is so clear about where he’s coming from and what he wants that he doesn’t shy away from the redemption narrative: “People talk about a revenge season as if you’re out to get everyone else, like it’s a matter of blood. But in my case, when I talk about revenge, I’m looking at myself, not at others. I know what I’ve been through, I know how to get the best out of myself.” This has included, over the summer, higher levels of focus and work than were usual for him: fewer trips, more training, a diet free from dairy, gluten, and processed foods… “At first, it was tough—if I traveled, I had to take frozen meals with me. It required a lot of discipline, a lot of responsibility. But I’ve been able to do it.”

His training regimen has included basketball, weightlifting, boxing… and extreme endurance sessions with David Goggins, a former Navy SEAL: “As much as it’s a physical challenge, it’s really a mental one. It’s about seeing how far you can go, how much you’ve got in the tank, what you’re capable of pushing beyond. It’s been a great experience.”

Bucks welcome “a new Damian Lillard”

For now, and according to his coach Doc Rivers, the demands of the summer are evident in what is, in practice, a new Damian Lillard: “Like night and day. He’s much more comfortable now, he feels at home. I went through the same thing as a player: I was traded, so I know what it’s like. It even happened to me as a coach. But never one or two days before training camp and when you thought you were going somewhere else. I can’t even imagine how hard that is.”

Giannis also sends an optimistic message: “Little by little, we’ve come to understand it. It was difficult; we had to change certain habits that were deeply ingrained in our careers. Him at 34, me at 29. But if we want to win, that’s what we have to do. And all of us – him, me, and the whole team – are willing to do whatever it takes to win.”

Lillard, who is running out of chances to avoid being one of those superstars who retire without a championship ring, is on the same page: “People see athletes as if we were robots, I think because we make a lot of money. And because of that, they think the bad things don’t affect us as much. I’ve had to allow myself to gain some perspective: there are soldiers who are far away defending our country and don’t get to see their kids. They risk their lives and are separated from their families.

“If I think about it, there are many things that could be worse for me. I’ve learned that, with my family, I have a support network that never fails me, people who have been there when I needed them. That’s the most important lesson I’ve learned: beyond the success you achieve in your profession, you have to honor and appreciate the relationships that are important in your life.”