Damian Lillard Quotes On Pressure, Work Ethic, Confidence & Basketball

The best Damian Lillard quotes and sayings:

Damian Lillard is a professional basketball player who currently plays for the Milwaukee Bucks in the NBA.

Lillard was drafted as the sixth pick in the 2012 NBA draft by the Portland Trail Blazers and spent 11 seasons in Portland before being traded to the Bucks in 2023. Prior to the NBA, Lillard spent 4 years at Weber State.

Lillard was the 2013 NBA Rookie of the Year, is a 7x NBA All-Star and has received several All-NBA Team selections.

Lillard is known for his ability to score from anywhere on the court and for his clutch performances. Dame has made countless game-winning shots throughout his career which has earned him his "Dame Time" nickname.

Lillard is one of the most confident and hard working players who has constantly overcome challenge and proven his critics wrong. Get a glimpse into his mindset and attitude with this collection of the top Damian Lillard quotes. 

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Famous Damian Lillard Quotes About Pressure And Being Clutch 

"I always talk about, like, with end-of-game situations, making and missing big shots, I know I can shoulder that. I can live with having the success of the playoffs and having a huge failure. I know I can deal with it." 

  

"Pressure, nah, this is just playing ball. Pressure is the homeless man, who doesn’t know where his next meal is coming from.  Pressure is the single mom who is trying to scuffle and pay her rent. We get paid a lot of money to play a game. Don't get me wrong - there are challenges. But to call it pressure is almost an insult to regular people."

"I'm willing to go out there and fail. I'm willing to go out there and look crazy if it comes down to it...It's not gonna shake my belief in no way."

"I wouldn't say the game slows down, I think once that moment comes I know that most people get tighter in that situation...they don't want to make a mistake, they don't want to miss a shot, I know that it's like that...so in those moments I just get more aggressive, I seek things out and I try to go after it. Instead of taking a step back, I take a step forward and then another step forward to try to impose myself, as opposed to playing it safe and worrying about what could go wrong. Once that moment comes, if it goes wrong, I'm willing to take that blame. I'm willing to shoulder whatever somebody got to say about it. And if it goes well, let's go back to work and do it again the next time it happens."

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Work Ethic Quotes By Damian Lillard

"I know, personally, people said a lot about what kind of defender I was. So I wanted to get better at it."

 

  

"If you want to look good in front of thousands, you have to out work thousands in front of nobody."

"I just want to keep working hard, stay humble, and keep trying to win games."

"How long should I stay dedicated? How long til opportunity meets preparation?"

"I’m just a kid from Oakland who had big dreams and worked hard to make them a reality."

 

 

"I know what it's like to be unknown and to not have the lights on you, to want to be seen and want a scholarship to a big school...I was behind the scenes doing the work, so I don't forget those steps that it took for me to get here."

"The biggest thing my family taught me is to put my head into whatever I feel like I want to be and really try to pursue it."

"Here I am getting this award [Rookie of the Year] and I'm not surprised by it. That's not meant to be a cocky statement, but I'm not surprised by it at all because I know I put the work in to put myself in this position."

"None of those things you just named would be possible without the work."

"How he got his jumper so deadly: "Putting a lot of time into it. A lot of reps. Whether people are watching or whether you get credit for it or not. You put the time in and you do it at a game pace, you do it with focus, you do it while you're holding yourself to a certain standard..."

"It comes down to preparation." 

 

 

"I had to put my work in behind the scenes...I had to earn my way. I didn't know that I was gonna ever get the credit for it or ever get the results for it."

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Damian Lillard Quotes About Confidence

"I've never had issues with stardom."

"Some shots, for me, are a good shot even if it's forced. The way it might look to a person watching, they might look at it like, 'That's a tough shot.' But for me, it's not a tough decision. I'm committed to those shots, and I spend time working on them."

 

"Anytime odds get stacked up against me, I feel like it’s in me to beat it."

"I'm not scared, I'm not running from nobody."

"I believed I could do anything."

"I'm definitely trying to prove something."

"I really had it in my mind like, I'm gonna make it."

"I'm that good of a shooter in my head... When I shoot shots, I hold myself to a standard where if I'm making 10 shots, I won't miss more than 2. It'll be 10 for 12 or I'll do it again. "

  

 

"I think confidence is the biggest thing for shooters, right next to just getting the reps in and knowing in your heart that you didn't cheat it. You put the time in and you deserve to make those shots."

"You get better from the reps, but I think more so than just physically you get better mentally and more confident in it because you've done it so often. And you've done it when you're tired, you've done it when you didn't want to."

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Damian Lillard Basketball Quotes

"I'm loyal to Portland. I want to play my whole career here, but at any moment, they can decide we want somebody else."

"For me it's just amazing that I grew up watching Tim Duncan and KG and Kobe and Paul Pierce, Allen Iverson and all those guys and now it's like, 'Man, I can't believe they actually got old.' It's like they actually walked away. It's crazy to think about, but the game has to keep moving."

"I grew up a Warriors fan."

"I always enjoy when CJ gets rolling because it's not just the fact that he's doing it for our team; it's the way it looks. Smooth. Crossovers. Crafty. Tough shots."

 

 

"It was a feeling I can't even explain to hear my name called."

"I’m straight up with y’all. I’m not unhappy. I love where I live, I love the organization, I love our coaching staff, I love who I am."

"It is impressive and I think it impressive for any team, to go out on the road and to win on someone else’s floor is tough. Anything can go wrong on the road. We have grown so much."

"I think that’s the stage we’re at as a team where we all, not just me, not just my teammates, not just our new coaching staff, the front office, everybody in this organization must look in the mirror because we’ve constantly come up short."

"My ultimate goal as a Trailblazer -- I want to be one of the best point guards to play for the Trailblazers."

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Quotes About Damian Lillard's Character And Attitude

"This era is like, 'Oh, I want to win championships, and how many rings do you have?' I've said that's what I play for: to win. But I'm not as overly consumed by that as how I treat people around me. And how I care about the people around me." 

 

"If your dreams don’t match your actions, you can either change your dreams or change your actions."

"It’s important to be able to stay level and keep your mind right and keep your mind strong."

"I want to see things work out for everybody ... so it's a burden I place on myself to make sure that we are performing at a certain level, that we get certain things done."

  

 

"I just try to do things the right way. I try to do things that pump life into the team and encourage the young guys."

"I’m here to be a leader and show younger people the way."

"I'll always be the person that has to deal with whatever the pros and cons of my decisions are, so I can't do things based on what other people think or whatever the criticism or chatter is. I gotta continue to do me."  

 

 

"I play for the love of the game. I want the competition, I want to know what it feels like to win, I wanna see my teammates do well... I enjoy the bonding part of it."

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Lillard Quotes About Success And Winning

"A lot of people kind of... conform. I don't want it to sound like I'm saying don't care about championships. That's not my point. But what I'm saying is a lot of people give in to the pressure of, 'I didn't have this; I didn't have rings.'"

 

 

"Even though I got a family and all these commercials and endorsements, I don't forget the thing that makes all those things possible -- which is the work, the discipline, the humility, the compassion, all of those things that I know I bring as a person, I know that's a part of why I've been able to get a lot of the things that I've gotten..."

"I don't need to prove to y'all that I wanna win a ring. Why the hell do I play?"

"When you know in your heart that you truly train hard and take care of yourself and do everything to win a championship, I don't have to prove it to nobody...I play to win a championship, it's just that I'm never gonna let outsiders...make me feel like a ring is what's gonna make me certified."

 

 

"While I understand we play to win championships... we can't keep acting like [the journey] doesn't matter."

"I feel like I've checked the box on everything that makes me feel like if I was done today, I've had a successful career. I would be fulfilled because I haven't taken any shortcuts...obviously if I win [a ring] that would be the ultimate cherry on top, but I don't think that's what means success."

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Quotes From Dame About Life

"Most parents are able to be with their kid every day. Every day of their life, their parents have an opportunity to be with them, and we don't have that luxury as professional athletes. That's the hardest thing." 

 

 

"Sometimes, it's just your turn to go through hard times."

"I read, I watch a lot of movies, I'm constantly living, so I'm constantly having more to say."

"I'm rapping, I'm hooping, I'm on a max-contract, I got a big shoe deal. Everything is good now. So of course, the support is going to be there, the love is going to be there, but what's going to happen when it changes or when I'm on the back-end of my career or when I ain't on TV all the time?"

 

 

"Visionary means being able to see a place for something that can be impactful before it’s right in front of you."

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Damian Lillard Quotes About Music

"With Biggie, I thought his flow and his swag was better than Tupac's, but I thought Tupac's passion and ability to relate to the average person was better than Biggie, and I thought Nas was kind of like both, with a lot substance going but a lot of swag."

  

 

"When you listen to my music, you're going to know that you're getting the real me, my real thoughts and feelings... I want people to be like, 'Oh, he's fresh out with his music for it to be this good.'"

"I feel like when it comes to rap - like, real rap music - and knowing the pioneers of rap, I feel like there's no competition for me in the NBA. Other guys can rap, but they're not as invested or as deep into actual music as I am and always have been. I think that might be what the difference is. I'm more wanting to be an artist."

"I started rapping towards the end of middle school. In high school, with a lot of my friends, we would make beats and just start rapping - beating on the wall, beating on the table and freestyling."

"I want to have hit records, but I'm not searching to say, 'All right, I need this to be in the club. I need this, that.' I'm just making quality music."

  

 

"I love music. In a lot of my downtime, I spend time listening to other people's music or other people's rhymes and writing my own."

"When I get done playing basketball, I'm definitely not going to be a rapper. I'm not going to be an old person who is focused on being a rapper."

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Other Motivational Damian Lillard Quotes

"We have to look in the mirror and say ‘I have to be better’ because whatever it is we’re doing is not working and it’s not giving us the shot to compete on the level that we want to compete on."

 

 

"I want to be remembered for who I was. Not as a player, but the principal that I stood on regardless of how successful I was, how major the failure was, the criticism, what people thought I should have did, what people think of me...I stood tall. I've stood tall in every situation and I want to be remembered for that."

"I don’t want him to hurt himself. I don’t want him to choke on something. You’re just so concerned for them, and it hurts you. It’s so alarming, man. I feel it for the people around me, but it’s deeper for my son. Only a parent would understand."

"I'm always up for a challenge."

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