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We laughed about it. That���s what it came down to - he was like, ���Man this kid can���t play for me. He goes or I go.��� ���We had this workout where he made it mandatory that guys showed up or they���d get cut,��� continues Jones. ���Guess who���s the only one who came? He worked out for two hours. Damian was the only one.��� Just as with Young, Lillard���s introduction at Oakland High wasn���t effortless the way it was at Weber State, where he was the Big Sky Freshman of the Year and its MVP a year later, or in Portland. Watkins yanked Lillard from a summer game when, after telling him to be in better help position on defense, Lillard reached instead of hustling to take a charge the very next possession. He was told as long as he bought in to playing defense, he could play for O-High. Lillard reassured Watkins he would. Finally, Lillard had his stage. For as many improvements as he made both at Weber State, where he moved from a sometimes shooting guard to a full-time point guard, and against NBA competition, the dye was cast in the crucible of the Oakland Athletic League. Jimmy Durkin, a reporter at the Oakland Tribune, has covered prep sports there since Lillard���s older brother, Houston, was a football standout. He saw Damian���s game take shape amid a ���chaotic��� atmosphere. ���That tends to boil onto the court,��� says Durkin. ���The fact he was pretty calm during some of those games, when what���s going on in the bleachers is almost chaos. The atmosphere is almost through the roof. The fact he was always pretty calm and collected in a chaotic situation speaks to the player he is.��� Playing in those Oakland Athletic League gyms may be one reason why Lillard, now moving with the photoshoot into the Trail Blazers��� weight room, nearly comes to a full stop in his adidas Crazy 8 sneakers when asked if he���s ever played scared. ���Nervous maybe, but not scared,��� Lillard says. He���s wearing a white T-shirt whose slogan ��� ���Don���t Doubt Me��� ��� seems laughable just months after his four seasons in the Big Sky Conference was an asterisk to many. ���I���m not scared to play nobody.��� ���He was always kind of like that,��� says Durkin. ���He always seemed to be, even in high school, a pretty mature player. I remember one of their league rivals, McClymonds, went 32-0 and won the state title. They faced off three times and nearly played in the Nor Cal title game for a fourth matchup. In a regular-season game McClymonds won on a threepointer and he just said, ���We���re going to see them again.������ Over the phone from Sacramento, Oakland High coach Watkins is animated re-enacting McClymonds��� 54-51 win in Lillard���s 2008 senior season. ���We were down and Dame had this look like, we���re 39 going to get us this victory,��� recalls Watkins. ���The shot to tie the game he shot, no lie, was a foot behind the NBA line to tie the game. Then we go down, we get a stop, Dame actually got fouled four times. The fourth foul the ball spurted out and it spurted out for a wide-open layup and the teammate missed. The moral of the story is the young man dribbled through the whole team, got fouled four times and after the game he said I���m worried about the next time I play them.��� Lillard hasn���t forgotten Oakland. Both the Rebels and Oakland High are now out���tted all in adidas gear ��� for free ��� because of Lillard���s generosity. When he trains, he runs on local beaches and shoots jumpers still at his old haunts. During one post-draft workout at Oakland High last summer, Lillard watched as Watkins��� players couldn���t complete a conditioning drill. He walked from the end of the court where he was shooting, jumped in the drill alongside the team, and everyone made it. PORTLAND���S WELL- known historic trouble with high draft picks came because the team was locked into getting the best player at its position of most need. That���s how centers Sam Bowie and Greg Oden were chosen ahead of Michael Jordan and Kevin Durant, obviously