NBA Draft Insider

College: Weber State

Birthday: 07/15/1990

NBA Position: PG

Class: Junior

Ht: 6-2

Wt: 185

Hometown: Oakland, CA

High School:

Ceiling:

Basement:

NBA Comparison:

Strengths:

• Quick
• NBA 3pt Range
• Aggressive Penetrator
• Scoring Guard
• Efficient Pick-and-Roll Player

Weaknesses:

• Strength
• Court Vision
• Small School Prospect
• Tweener, PG or SG?

Analysis:

05/11/2012

Weber State junior guard Damian Lillard has declared for the NBA Draft signing with agent Aaron Goodwin.

You may not have heard of Lillard until this year it is because he missed about 60% of his original junior year in 2010-2011. This year was Lillard’s junior year and he picked up where he left off after the injury. In the teams’ 10^th game of the 2010-2011 season he fractured the 5^th metatarsal in his right foot.

This season Lillard picked up right where he left off as an elite scoring point guard.

Lillard is a lead guard who scores first and he can do so in a variety of ways. He has a strong, good sized frame allowing him to absorb contact in the paint. Lillard shot the 8^th most free-throws in the country making the second most at an 88.3% clip. He then balances that penetration ability with a consistent three-point shooting stroke. Lillard shot the ball from three at 40.9% this year (39.0% career) and can make it from NBA three.

At Weber State Lillard was not playing with or against NBA talent so he was able to score easily, but his point guard numbers are not very desirable. He was a career 3.5 APG player and averaged a career-high 4.0 last year.

The biggest attribute for Lillard is his ability to play pick-and-roll basketball. He is proficient coming off the pick and attacking the basket, shooting the three, or passing the ball. That and his combination of size and shooting ability make Lillard a potential Top 10 pick coming out of the Big Sky.

Playing in the Big Sky allowed Lillard to showcase his skill-set and play great basketball, but it is not a particularly talented conference. No player from that conference is looked at as “NBA talent” and that is indicative of Lillard’s success. A few years ago a player named Rodney Stuckey came out of the Big Sky (Eastern Washington) and that will help – to an extent – in quelling the criticism of being a small school prospect. Lillard has the potential to be a Chauncey Billups type leader/scorer at the point. Not a great pass-first point-guard, but a very good guard.

Today Lillard is the No. 2 point guard, is going No. 10 Overall in the Mock Draft, and the No. 16 prospect on the Big Board.

02/21/2012

Lillard is a great scorer. That is to put it mildly; he scores in many different ways which makes him unique. He is not just a shooter (44.8% from three), or a player that gets to the line (88.7% from the line), but one that does all of that. As a scorer Lilliard does not turn the ball over at a high rate which is rare. On defense he is a quality rebounder for his position and has played well overall.

He did not play a lot his junior year (only played 10-games) due to injury. In those games he torched every team he played. This year he is leading the NCAA in scoring and doing it in a variety of ways. He is great at drawing contact and is a volume free-throw shooter. As a scorer he is third in the NCAA in free-throw makes and also connects on three threes a game.

The sample size I have seen of Lillard is small, but he is a terrific scorer at Weber State. The competition level is not elite by any standards, but he has great physical tools. He gets to the free-throw line and converts at a high rate. When the player that has the ball in his hands has that skill he has a place at the next level. Not sure if he translates as a point guard, but that was the same problem for Rodney Stuckey, Stephen Curry, and many others.

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