Damian Lillard to journo: ‘You got a lot of homework to do homie’ (Morning Blazer)

Damian Lillard tweets a pointed response to a TV/radio journalist who says he’s not as good as some of the other top guards in the Western Conference.

One of the great things about sports in general and basketball in particular is the debates. And the Trail Blazers’ Damian Lillard is the topic of a good many of those debates.

Portland journo Aaron J. Fentress argued in a series of tweets Tuesday that Lillard “is in the conversation” as one of the top guards in the league, but not in the top tier:

In fact, Fentress suggested that Lillard may not even be in the Top 5:

After a bit more back and forth between Fentress and his interlocutors, Lillard himself stepped into the fray:

Trail Blazers, Dame, and Everybody Else

We’ve written a lot about Trail Blazers greats at the RCP. Just this week alone, we’ve scoured the archives to find every Portland All-Star and every Portland player who coulda/shoulda/woulda been an All-Star.

But in modern-day Rip City, Dame is in a class by himself. He’s quickly ascending the charts of the all-time best to wear the blaze. And it won’t be long now before the only player standing in Lillard’s way is Clyde Drexler.

But as we learned in that statistics class we dropped out of sophomore year of college, it’s important to look beyond the numbers. For Blazers fans, Lillard carries a heavy load. Just look at what he’s been able to do for Portland, which (let’s just face facts here) isn’t exactly stacked with All-NBA talent.

In the tweet above, Fentress lists five players that he apparently considers to be better than Lillard. But I think it’s reasonable to argue that not one of those players has done more with less support than Damian Lillard.

Fentress agrees that Lillard is “phenomenal.” And the way to truth is often murky, especially when debating the relative greatness of NBA athletes.

But Dame has at least one Hall of Famer on his side.

I bet Fentress would agree with that, too.

Odds and Ends

A story bubbling up Tuesday at BlazersEdge.com said that Troy Williams had been offered a 10-day contract with the Trail Blazers but opted to sign with the New York Knicks instead. It’s one of those rumors (this one from Williams’ uncle) that inevitably pop up this time of year as teams look to shore up their rosters for the season’s home stretch.

Next: Trail Blazers’ Lillard makes Rip City proud at NBA All-Star Game

Portland, in fact, recently signed Brandon Rush to a 10-day contract. As we wrote about here, the Trail Blazers actually drafted Rush 13th overall in the 2008 NBA draft.

We’re hoping Rush gets court time ASAP. Let’s see if he can make a difference, starting Friday against the Utah Jazz.