Dime is the premier basketball magazine, covering the NBA, NCAA, High School, Playground and International basketball - as well as sneakers, fashion and music.
Issue link: http://dimemagazine.epubxp.com/i/109153
Lillard is 6-2, 195 pounds, 22 years old and is the next logical step in the line of highscoring point guards who alternately revolutionize and infuriate the NBA.��� ������������������ tus after just 11 college games. Westbrook did it by discovering his most lethal parts, dunking and blinding acceleration, only as a high school senior. But what made Damian Lillard? At his core, Oakland. Playing for three high schools in four years ��� and being buried as a sophomore reserve at Jason Kidd���s alma mater, St. Joseph Notre Dame High ��� stunted his national pro���le. His choice of the Oakland Rebels AAU team in eighth grade didn���t lend itself to publicity, either. The Rebels are a ���ne club that���s sent dozens of players to college, but it isn���t the recruiting pipeline like another Oakland AAU team, the Soldiers. They count LeBron James, Jennings, Chauncey Billups and new phenom Aaron Gordon as alumni. They are well-funded and travel nationally each year. After several high schools, a small AAU club and a small college career, Damian Lillard, just a few months into his NBA career, is on the verge of being a household name. And yet, it almost wasn���t so. When Lillard threw a celebration for his draft selection in Oakland last summer, longtime Rebels assistant Damon Jones broke the party up into laughter with one of his favorite stories. Lillard played with a stone-faced style even when he was an eighth grade shooting guard, but head coach Raymond Young took it for the mark of a disinterested player. ���I was like man, do you remember when coach Ray was saying you couldn���t play for him?��� says Jones. ���He was going to leave the program or you had to leave? 38