NBA ALL-STAR MEDIA DAY

February 18, 2023

Damian Lillard

Media Day Press Conference

Q. What does it mean to have an All-Star Game here?

DAMIAN LILLARD: I mean, honestly, it's fun for me. I think I always make my way back here because I spend so much time here. I know so many people here, so many great memories here. To be able to be in my 11th year and to be a seven-time All-Star and to have this experience here where a lot of the people that saw me kind of blossom from the beginning, for them to see me at this point and at this level of my career and as a man, it's pretty special.

The people that I run into I met when I was 17, and they're looking at me and I'm almost twice the age that I met them at. It's pretty cool. Actually, our trainer, when I broke my foot in college, the guy that we were playing NBA 2K together, 6:00 a.m. every morning in the weight room, doing all this rehab stuff, he's actually the strength coach for the Kings, so I saw him in the back with De'Aaron Fox. It's was just crazy that we ran into each other.

Q. (No microphone.)

DAMIAN LILLARD: Yeah, it does. It feels like a homecoming. I feel like if it was in Oakland, I would feel this way.

Q. (No microphone).

DAMIAN LILLARD: I think anytime an All-Star Weekend is in a place where somebody connects with that place, I think it's important to pay homage and to acknowledge that. The fact that I lived here for four years, went to school here, like I said, I met so many friends and so many people that I still interact with and deal with on a personal level here, and just what I've laid down in this area, on the Wasatch Front, I think it was just perfect. It was perfect to be able to do that.