Portland Trail Blazers’ Damian Lillard to have abdominal surgery, out 6-8 weeks

Portland Trail Blazers megastar Damian Lillard will have surgery on his abdomen and will miss six to eight weeks.

The Portland Trail Blazers have been without Damian Lillard since the turn of the new year as he dealt with a years-old abdominal injury, and it looks like they’ll have to do without their best player at least until March.

Lillard has missed a total of 11 games this season – all but one from this injury – and multiple sources reported yesterday that he will have surgery and is expected to miss at least six to eight weeks recovering. The Blazers recently announced that he wouldn’t be joining the team on their upcoming six-game road trip, and it’s likely they will take a cautious approach with his return.

It’s been a rough year injury-wise for Portland, who don’t have a single player on the roster who has played in every game and had to sign four players to 10-day contracts after a recent COVID outbreak.

The Trail Blazers are 4-7 without Lillard and likely will semi-officially enter tank/seller mode.

We called for Lillard to be shut down in this very same virtual space four days ago, so it is sadly satisfying to see the Blazers beginning to understand the wisdom of this move.

Despite back-to-back wins led by Anfernee Simons and Ben McLemore, Portland is stuck behind nine other teams in a stacked Western Conference.

Any championship aspirations they had going into the season are obviously long gone, and fighting for a play-in spot so they can be bounced in the first round by the Warriors and lose their first round pick to Chicago seems foolish at this point.

The Trail Blazers have a plethora of players on expiring contracts and interim general manager Joe Cronin should be fielding plenty of trade calls. They’ll also have a decision to make regarding Simons’ restricted free agency status, should they be able to clear some cap room.

So while Blazer fans certainly want to see their best player on the court, shutting him down is the right move for next season and beyond.