Since 2012, and perhaps since the dawn of the franchise, no player has defined the Portland Trail Blazers more than Damian Lillard. His three-point shooting, 50-point performances, and charismatic leadership have stamped him as one of the best in this NBA generation, if not an all-time great. One thing remains to fill out his impressive résumé: an NBA championship.
But this is where the narrative comes to a grinding halt. As objectively great as Lillard has been, his teams have never gotten close to gold. Their lone trip to the Western Conference Finals in 2019 resulted in a four-game sweep, as the Golden State Warriors squished them like an offending, but hardly frightening, spider scuttling across the kitchen floor.