Milwaukee Bucks Rumors
Get a free trial Damian Lillard: “Early in my career, I always felt like I was underappreciated, and I think I had an underdog mentality. Sometimes, even when I was getting credit, I felt like I wasn’t getting enough credit or that they were ignoring what I was doing. Then I reached the point in my career where I started to get acknowledged how I felt I should be acknowledged. And then fast forward to being named on the 75th Anniversary team—that’s like the ultimate nod to what my body of work has been and how consistent I’ve been since I stepped foot in the NBA. I’m not loud, and I’m not saying too much and doing all these things, but I’m always productive.”
Damian Lillard: “We just weren’t in a lot of pick and rolls together. For a long time, it was like we were just playing in transition, or I was in the iso, or he was in the iso. There just wasn’t a lot of pick and rolls, so the best way to get chemistry in pick and rolls is to be in a lot of pick and rolls together. It got to the point with Doc where he was just having us in practice, saying, ‘Just set it, throw it to Giannis. Giannis, give it back to Dame. All right, Dame, throw it back. All right, Giannis, uphill DHO.’ It was almost like the team was laughing at us just repping it out over and over.”
For Rivers, having Rondo around reminded him of his own journey from being an NBA point guard to a head coach. “I just think there’s certain guys that should be a coach,” he said. “It’s funny, I never thought I was going to coach, and Pat Riley told me I’m coaching. I said, ‘No, I’m going to do TV.’ He said, ‘You’ll be a coach’ and Pat Riley never relented. And when I did TV those first three years, he would send texts or letters like, ‘Get your f—ing ass on the sideline.’ And I feel the same way [with Rondo].”
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Rajon Rondo joins Bucks in unspecified coaching capacity for season
With that, Rondo has spent the week with the Bucks as a guest coach for their training camp at UC Irvine, and Rivers told ESPN that Rondo will remain with the team in an unspecified capacity this season. “You’ll see him a lot,” Rivers said. “That’s all I’ll say.”
Rondo said he doesn’t have an exact path in mind. “You see people go from not coaching to head-coaching jobs all the time,” he said. “A lot of people go straight to becoming assistant coaches. So there’s just no path. I just want to seek as much information as possible.” Rondo declined to say whether he received any offers from other teams, but he said he appreciated that Rivers, who coached Rondo for seven seasons in Boston, is giving him this opportunity.
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Damian Lillard on public perception of partnership with Giannis: People just see two great players and think success will follow
Damian Lillard: The number two thing is having to learn to work with somebody new. And not just having to—being expected to work together and figure it out right away. And I think that’s something people don’t understand. They just look at, This player’s great, that player’s great, you got this, you got that, and they just think it’s supposed to work. But you gotta figure out how it works for everybody. Me playing with Giannis is one thing, but we have to figure out how we work best and how that works for everybody, because there are a lot of guys that have to be able to do what they do best and be in a position to succeed for the team to succeed. So I think a lot of people look at two [people], and they don’t look at the big picture of the entire team.
How has your relationship and chemistry with Giannis evolved and where is it at now? Damian Lillard: I think it developed great over the course of the season. He’s not a super talkative person and I’m not a super talkative person myself. Over time, I’ve become [more outspoken] the more that I start to build relationships with people, especially on the team. And I think as the season went on, me and him definitely started to talk more and more, and I started to come to his house to do conditioning or work out together. We’re on the phone. I’m sending him clips and stuff like that. And this summer, we’ve been in constant communication. We both know that we need each other. I think he’s excited coming into the season just like I am, because we became a lot closer as the season went on and we started to learn [about] each other a lot better. So having a full offseason of being connected to each other and being able to go into this next season, I think we’re both going to be ready. And we’re both excited to do what we gotta do.
Can you talk specifically about building pick-and-roll chemistry with Giannis? How has that developed? Damian Lillard: To start the year, we just weren’t in a lot of pick-and-rolls together for a long time. We were playing in transition, or I was in ISO, or he was in ISO. It just wasn’t a lot of pick-and-rolls. The best way to get chemistry in pick-and-rolls is to be in a lot of pick-and-rolls together. And I think it got to the point with Doc where he was having us in practice, just, Set it. Throw it to Giannis. Giannis, give it back to Dame. All right, Dame, throw it back. All right, Giannis, uphill DHO. It was almost like the team was laughing at us, just repping it out over and over. Then in games, we ended up being in a lot of those actions together a lot more the second half of the year. I started to see what he was thinking, and I think he started to see what I was thinking, and then we would talk about it. Once you start to build chemistry, then I can start directing a little bit more because we are more connected, instead of me just trying to tell him what I want him to do [when] we haven’t even really worked together on it.
