Portland Trail Blazers: De’Aaron Fox calls Damian Lillard the hardest player to guard in NBA

De’Aaron Fox was recently asked about his “Welcome to the NBA” moment, and reminisced on the time Trail Blazers megastar Damian Lillard scored 50 on him. He also called him the hardest player to guard.

In any given week, particularly on West Coast swings, it isn’t a rare sighting for a young point guard to run into say, Chris Paul on a Monday, Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard and Russell Westbrook a few nights later, and top it off with a visit to the Bay Area to showdown with Stephen Curry.

Such has been life for young, up-and-coming Sacramento Kings guard De’Aaron Fox. The dynamic guard recently took to J.J. Redick and Tommy Alter’s “The Old Man and The Three” podcast, and when Redick asked him about his “Welcome to the NBA” moment, Fox offered the following.

"Fox: So my rookie year, Dame … I would say, even to this day, Dame is the hardest player I have to guard. He gave us 50 in three quarters.”Redick: And now many of those 50 were on you?Fox: Not a lot, I would say not a lot. I would say not a lot, but uh, probably like 15, 16. But like, he was doing it to everybody. So we had … I would guard him, George (Hill) was with us, and Garrett Temple. We were throwing everything at him.When he was coming off the pick, we were blitzing him, and man, he made the game look so easy, and you see what he’s doing right now. He’s pulling up from halfcourt. He was already doing that, so I’m like, ‘There is nothing I can do. I don’t know what you want me to do to stop this man. And that was for sure my “Welcome to the NBA” moment.”"

Fox is referring to a Trail Blazers vs. Kings game on Feb. 9, 2018. Just one week prior, Lillard’s teammate-in-crime CJ McCollum exploded for 50 points in 29 minutes against the Bulls. His final line: 50 points on 16-of-26 from the field, 8-of-13 from deep, and 10-of-10 from the charity stripe in 31 minutes.

Credit to Sactown Royalty’s Sabreena Merchant for digging up this fact: per NBA.com, De’Aaron Fox wasn’t too far off, having scored 17 points against Fox, and allocating the other 33 for other Kings. If nothing else, it showcases both Lillard’s ability to score on defenders of all sizes and positions, and also the respect he’s earned from the next generation’s crop of talented, budding floor generals.

Historically speaking, Lillard has had tons of success against the Kings. In 2019-20, he averaged 24.5 points per game on 51-39-88 percentage splits. And for his career, his 60.5 true shooting percentage clip against the Kings is among the highest.

This also comes just two months after 3-and-D stalwart Patrick Beverley referred to Damian Lillard as the NBA’s “hardest player to guard,” despite how high-profile their off-court jawing was.

For those interested in learning about how a young point guard works through the intricacies of the grind of daily NBA life, or just De’Aaron Fox in general, the rest of the podcast can be found above.