Motivational Story - Damian Lillard (Portland Trail Blazers / NBA)

Greetings! This week I want to tell you a story about an athlete that might go down in NBA history as the best ever ‘little big man’ in his sport! Despite his greatness, it is the story of how he got to the Pros that will give you Hope that your Dreams can come true if you punch in the clock and apply yourself to your craft.

This is about Damian Lillard of the Portland Trailblazers. He barely stretches over 6-feet in his socks. His family did not come from money. They could not afford for him to go play in tournaments during his teen years. So that he could develop his shooting skills, his Grandfather went down to a local elementary school and found a plastic Milk Crate in a dumpster. He sawed out the bottom, nailed the crate to a telephone pole in front of their house and gave Damian a chance to practice the sport he loved. He would go outside after school shooting until darkness most every night for years until he enrolled in high school.

Lillard called it real basketball. “This is what I came up playing. That’s what made me who I am today,” he says. Coming out of high school in Oakland, California, he had scholarship offers but only from small schools mostly due to his size. That did not deter him. He would enroll at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah.

During his sophomore year, he faced a hardship when a leg injury would force him to miss most of the season. Phil Beckner, then a coach on the Weber State staff, mentions a story that sums of Lillard’s ‘will to succeed’ at that time. “I remember getting a phone call in the middle of the night and Dame had just one question to ask. He said ‘Coach, what do I have to do to make the NBA?’ I told him ‘You have to outwork everyone in the country!’ Dame says quickly: ‘All right, I'm going to do it, then hung up!’"

He quickly made arrangements to get time in the university gym. Even with a cast on his one leg, Lillard was seen taking 400 shots from a chair day-after-day and another 200 or more shots while standing on one leg. He then created a drill where he’d practice dribbling behind his back while seated in a chair. These exercises led him to increase his scoring the next year during his red-shirt Junior season where he averaged over 24 points-per-game.

Going into the NBA Draft in 2012, there were many skeptics who second-guessed Portland for taking a point guard from a little known college. The reports said: "He can be careless with the ball. Needs to work on his turnover rate. Hard to figure out prospect because he plays at a lower competition level school. Needs to work on his decision-making in the open court. He’s not a true point guard.”

Lillard refused to accept someone's estimation that he couldn’t make it to the NBA even if he was considered small? He’s become a force of nature, averaging over 20 points-per-game in each of his last seven seasons. During the five Portland wins in the recent playoff seeding games, Lillard scored 31, 42, 45, 51 and 61 points to capture the NBA Bubble MVP Award!

Now at age 30, Lillard still has never forgotten his upbringing. It continually fuels his fire. “I didn’t grow up playing in fancy gyms. We didn’t grow up getting boxes of shoes in the mail. We didn’t grow up with a trainer and a video team. I’ve been making it since 2001 on a 'Milk Crate' on Beverly Avenue in Oakland, California.”

Let the Lillard case be a form of motivation that neither size, background or team/league are a reason you cannot make your Dreams come true!

Keep these words with You stated by the great Vince Lombardi of the NFL Green Bay Packers: “A person can be as great as they want to be. If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done.”

Jim Loria