Things Get Awkward When Dame Lillard Calls Out Reporter For Tweets Undermining Blazers Backcourt

The beauty of sports is that while we are all witnessing the same game, we’re telling ourselves completely different stories.

Like Chandler Parsons. The general public was of the belief that a guy coming off two meh seasons and a chronic knee injury was not worth anything more than a few baseball cards, a sack of marbles, and a dead bird. Memphis smoked a bowl and then signed him to a four-year $94 million deal. In three seasons with the Griz, he never played more than 36 games nor averaged more than 7.9 points per game. The stories we tell ourselves.

Aaron J. Fentress, a reporter covering the Portland Trail Blazers for The Oregonian, deluded himself with the belief that Russell Westbrook and Bradley Beal are a better backcourt than Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum, statistics be damned.

• Dame & CJ became the just the fourth teammate tandem in history to each score at least 250 points through the first 10 games of a season.
• McCollum is third in the league in scoring (28.1) and Lillard is seventh (27.4).
• Lillard became the only player to post at least 40 points and 13 assists with zero turnovers in a single game since turnovers became an official stat in 1977
• McCollum’s 40 3’s through the first nine games puts him in the company of Steph Curry as the only players to do so. [via]

After Lillard went off for 40 in a comeback win over the Kings, Dame took Fentress to task for his claim and you can almost hear the reporter’s jewels shrink up into his stomach.

When your colleague introduces her toddler into the Friday afternoon Zoom call:

In the grand scheme of Shit Star Players Get, Dame Lillard is at the bottom. Winning just four playoff series in eight years would get any other player in the league’s undies run up the flagpole.