The National Drumbeat for Damian Lillard's MVP Candidacy Is Getting Louder
In Rip City, Damian Lillard's MVP case has been obvious for months.
No player in basketball shouldered a bigger offensive load than Lillard when C.J. McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic were sidelined.
He wasn't just a supernova of consistent crunch-time heroics the likes of which the league had never seen, but also the only reason why the woefully short-handed Trail Blazers were in any position to win in the first place. Dame Time gets the most headlines and highlights, and always will. What Lillard was doing the first 43 minutes of games, though, somehow loomed nearly as large as his historic impact in the clutch.
He dropped 44 points and nine assists in the game he sent Portland to last-second victory over the Chicago Bulls. Lillard had eight of the Blazers last 10 points in their thrilling win over the New Orleans Pelicans a couple weeks later, a game he finished with 43 points and a career-best 16 dimes. He went for 44 points against the Sacramento Kings to send Portland streaking into the All-Star break, scoring eight points in the game's last two minutes.
Lillard averaged 31.2 points, 4.2 rebounds and 8.5 assists on 62.0 percent true shooting in 24 games without both McCollum and Nurkic. The Blazers scored at a rate higher than the Brooklyn Nets' all-time offensive rating with him on the floor, and lower than the San Antonio Spurs' 20th-ranked mark when he was off it, per NBA.com/stats.
Most importantly? Portland went 13-11 in games Lillard played sans McCollum and Nurkic, more than staying afloat in a loaded Western Conference.
The Blazers, obviously, have been better since McCollum came back on March 16 and Nurkic followed him five games later. They're 7-2 over that timeframe, beating up on a surprisingly weak schedule while re-integrating their second and third-best players and adding Norman Powell.
Lillard, fighting a series of nagging injuries, hasn't been anywhere near his best of late. He even sat out against the Orlando Magic. But that hasn't stopped Portland's mini-surge from giving Lillard's MVP candidacy the nationwide momentum it's deserved for weeks.
Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports put Lillard at the top of his personal MVP rankings on Friday.
Lillard moved up to second on NBA.com's MVP Ladder, his highest rung of the season to date.
ESPN's Jalen Rose didn't go quite that far on Jalen and Jacoby, but believes Lillard already has "a legitimate shot" to win MVP – and that the Blazers' strong play will continue now that they're healthy, further burgeoning his case.
Narrative can matter too much in the minds of MVP voters. Conventional wisdom said that reality would be to Lillard's greatest benefit when his game-long brilliance and late-game dramatics were propelling a depleted Portland team to unlikely wins.
But momentum in the MVP race belongs to Lillard right now. And if the Blazers continue playing well, there's no reason to believe that should change.