NBA Dunk of the Week: Damian Lillard Is the Daniel Day-Lewis of Dunking

Having watched more than half of the games he’s ever played, I remain fascinated by the spirit that powers Damian Lillard. The national media and the broader basketball chattering classes think of him as Steph Lite: a gifted player whose dribbling, shooting, and driving games line up, almost by coincidence, with the currents of the modern world and yet are juuuuust short of being refined enough to challenge the Golden State Warriors, or to draw the Blazers out of the well and into the thirsty belly of true glorious victory or whatever.

They’re wrong, though. Even if he isn’t really better than that—which, I don’t know, I honestly don’t give a shit—Damian Lillard is possessed by a spirit of competition that is moving to watch, a craving for victory subdued in a quiet spirit that drives him to beautiful places, in both triumph and defeat. To watch him over and over is to be constantly taken aback by how much he brings with a physical and skill toolkit that occasionally can seem limited. He is every bullshit columnist's dream manifestation of a winner, toiling away in a market that, out of view of national press and the national fanbase, loves the shit out of him.

In the past few games, Portland’s fortunes have been, well, fucking shit. After a 5-1 road trip, the team went home, dropped three in a row for no particular reason, found themselves injured, and then went on the road to square off with the Rockets and the Warriors, the two best teams in basketball right now. It’s an insanely shitty scene, five straight losses, the whole season getting a 45-pound plate gently set on its back, the Blazers staring down a season of irrelevance with beady little eyes.

But, in defeat as in victory, Lillard has done what he could. He went for 35 and drilled nine threes in the game against the Rockets, doing everything he could to withstand 48 fucking points from James Harden. He followed that up with a 39-point effort in his hometown, Oakland, where he did everything he could to overcome an enormous early lead from the Warriors, playing big in the face of near-certain defeat, attempting to right a ship being thrown off course by the overwhelmingly stiff yellow currents of Golden State brutality.

One of the things he did was dunk.

The relationship Lillard has with dunking is the weirdest I think I’ve ever seen between a player and a shot. He was in a dunk contest once—some truly surprising shit considering the fact that he goes really, really far out of his way to, like, not dunk all that often. Layups on fast breaks and whatnot. He did it then, I suspect, to prove to a world that didn’t see him do it all that often that he actually could. His presence on that Dunk-Court was weird. It was even weirder when it turned out he was pretty good.

When it happens, it’s not just weird, it’s usually meaningful. Lillard is, in his way, the Daniel Day-Lewis of dunking, only uncorking one every few years, constantly threatening to retire, but always bringing well-crafted fire to the bang.

Here we see Lillard, having played a whole heap of minutes, square down against Kevin Durant, fake left, catch the bigger forward off his feet, drive right, rise up in the lane, and slam one down while David West looks on in futility.

His team, down double digits and living in a wild skid that threatens the core structures of the franchise, probably needed like a ten-point shot and a negative-seven-point block to catch up with the ruthless Warrior Machine on Monday. Lillard can’t do either of those things, but, walking across the tightrope of catastrophe, he felt he had to take SOMETHING out of his spiritual suitcase, bring something startling, spit whatever gas he could find into the engine to get the fires going, for Christ’s sake.

And so he tried to dunk through the team. He dredged up the last bit of spirit he had left, and tried to bang his way out of the trap the Blazers have made for themselves. It didn’t work, because nothing works against the Warriors. They’re a pit that suffocates everything they touch, clever tricks scattered to the wind, great players drowned in the madness of self, sophisticated team concepts out-maneuvered and overpowered by a perpetual motion machine.

Lillard’s dunk here is THE picture of the overwhelming futility that the NBA is experiencing in the Warriors era. You do everything you can—you cross over the second best player in the league, jump as high as you can, dunk for the first time in recent memory—but it just doesn’t matter. Three-pointers wouldn’t matter, a crisp pass wouldn’t matter, leading his team with every last drop of charisma wouldn’t matter. The current drowns everyone eventually.

Honorable Mention Dunk of the Week: Draymond and Javale

This pass is so stupid. It’s fun, but also it’s extremely stupid, and I'm annoyed that it worked. I think Draymond is cool, but his NBA career has just been IMPOSSIBLY charmed, and this, right here, is Exhibit A. You know that he was supposed to play like ten minutes during the Dubs' 67-win season, before David Lee got injured and he had to get into the starting lineup? What a lucky SOB.