Portland Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard is unhappy with the league’s gradual transition and has not refrained from commenting on it. The 32-year-old star guard recently talked about certain changes in the NBA that have apparently transformed the entire meaning of the game. This is probably why the 7x NBA All-Star took up the mantle to educate young basketball players about the important aspects of the game via his recent initiative.

The Portland Trail Blazers are not really in their best shape this season as proved by their recent losses. Despite having NBA star Damian Lillard lead the team, the Blazers continue to sit among the bottom five teams in the Western Conference.

Damian Lillard guides aspiring athletes

In August 2022, Damian Lillard organized his first-ever camp known as ‘Formula Zero’ with the intention of mentoring young basketball players. Given his thoughts about the ‘ring culture’ in the league, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise that the Blazers star decided to try and make a positive impact on the aspiring hoopers’ lives. Months after organizing the previous camp, Lillard is back to induce the ‘hard hustle’ mentality in the attendees.

In a short clip uploaded by the official Instagram handle, Lillard was seen giving a pep talk to the players about the importance of hard work. He said, “If y’all wanna be great players, y’all wanna be professionals, nobody should have to coach you. Y’all playing hard. Your effort, they should never have to coach effort, because for a lot of you all, that’s gonna be your only advantage over other player.”

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Lillard consistently drilled the significance of playing hard on the players’ minds and reminded them that “even the best players in the world, they playing way harder than you think.”

What is the toxic ‘ring culture?’

In a recent episode of JJ Reddick’s The Old Man & the Three, Damian Lillard dropped some hard ‘facts’ that turned a few heads in the NBA world. When the host asked him about the changes in the NBA, Lillard’s major point was that the new generation’s players did not understand the importance of having to earn what they want.

He said, “The NBA I play in now is not the NBA I came into. I expected it to evolve. Everything is constantly changing. But I feel like I play for the love of the game. I want the competition, I want to know what it feels like to win. I want to see my teammates do well, I want to see my teammates get paid, I enjoy the bonding part of it. We spend more time with each other than anybody. But now that don?t count. Regular season doesn?t count. Get a ring. This guy?s the MVP. This guy did this. What is this?”

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Lillard’s comments garnered the attention of a certain group of NBA fans who disagreed with his thoughts on the league. This led fans to call out Lillard for his controversial take on the matter.

What are your thoughts on Lillard’s opinion? Let us know in the comments.