Damian Lillard is Cursed

The season-ending injury, which will keep him out most likely for the entirety of 2025-26 as well, comes days after he made a ‘never been seen before’ comeback from a blood clot in his right calf to return for Game 2 against the Indiana Pacers. 

Tearing an Achilles is a gut-wrenching, unfortunate occurrence in the NBA. Developing a blood clot, known as deep vein thrombosis (DVT), is even more hapless. Having both occur within a two-month span is downright terrible. 

But for Lillard, this is just how the chips seem to fall, because the 34-year-old has been the most cursed player in the league, dating all the way back to his extended time with the Portland Trail Blazers.

Team on His Back (2013-2019)

Lillard came into the NBA and found immediate success.

He was the league’s fourth unanimous Rookie of the Year. He hit a series-clinching three-point shot with 0.9 seconds left to give Portland its first playoff series victory in 14 years. He was named to the All-NBA Third team and two All-Star teams in his first three seasons.

That still didn’t stop LaMarcus Aldridge from leaving the Portland Trail Blazers, and Lillard, for the San Antonio Spurs in free agency.

Thankfully, CJ McCollum rose to stardom the season following Aldridge’s departure, but even taking into account his running mate at guard, from 2015-2019, Lillard didn’t play with a single player who had ever made an All-Star Game, or really even sniffed one. 

That didn’t stop Lillard from leading Portland to the playoffs every single year. Unfortunately for Dame and the Blazers, their joint success coincided with the Warriors’ dominant dynasty. Golden State would knock Portland out of the playoffs in three of the four aforementioned seasons. Lillard’s dominance was continuously outshined by that of Steph Curry. People will likely forever know Dame as the second-greatest shooter of all time. 

Leading up to the 2018-19 playoffs, Portland was confident that the trio of Lillard, McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic was finally capable of competing with Golden State. Nurkic, however, suffered a gruesome leg injury with two weeks left in the regular season. The Blazers still made the Western Conference Finals that year, but were swept by the Warriors upon arrival. 

Holding It Together (2019-2023)

Lillard did all he could to keep the Blazers relevant from 2019 until he requested a trade from the organization.

He was named bubble-MVP for averaging 37.6 points per game in the eight seeding games, allowing Portland the luxury of being wiped by the eventual champion Los Angeles Lakers in the first round.

He had one of the best playoff performances in a loss of all time when he dropped 55 points and 12 three-pointers in a double overtime defeat to the Denver Nuggets in 2021. 

He dropped 71 points in a game in 2023, which helped him average a career-high 32.2 points per game that season.

Lillard was in his prime from 2019 to 2023. Yet, due to inept roster management by general managers Neil Olshey and Joe Cronin, the Blazers finished no higher than sixth in the Western Conference and won no playoff series. 

At the end of the 2021-22 season, sitting at 11th in the West, Lillard opted to undergo abdominal surgery to fix a nagging injury and allow the team to tank themselves into a better draft pick (which ended up being Shaedon Sharpe). 

In 2023, the Blazers made it 72 games before pulling the plug. Portland essentially forced Lillard to sit out the final 10 games of the best scoring season of his career. They would lose all 10 of their remaining games and move up to third in the draft lottery and, instead of trading the pick for a win-now player, drafted Scoot Henderson.

Seeing the writing on the wall, Lillard finally decided to put himself first and requested a trade. His initial request was to be sent to the Miami Heat; Cronin did not oblige his request, but did send him to a different contender in the Eastern Conference, the Milwaukee Bucks.

Never Found a Rhythm (2023-Present)

It appeared as if the Bucks were going to be a stable place for Lillard to settle into. 

That was not the case.

Alongside multi-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and a roster that was the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference the year prior, expectations were high. However, halfway into the season, Head Coach Adrian Griffin was fired and replaced by the thought-to-be-retired Doc Rivers.

Rivers, coming off years of playoff failures with the 76ers, only made the team worse from a wins-and-losses perspective.

To make matters worse, in 2024, Antetokounmpo strained his calf with three games remaining in the regular season and would miss the entirety of Milwaukee’s first-round matchup against Indiana. 

Lillard, alone, would try his best to keep the Bucks alive. He averaged 32.3 points in the first three games of the series before getting hurt himself and missing Games 4 and 5. He returned in the decisive Game 6 and dropped 28 points in the loss. 

Then came the 2024-25 season, a year that for the Bucks has been defined by role players who can’t hang and a disastrous trade. Despite the surrounding drama, as long as Lillard and Giannis were both healthy, Milwaukee felt they had a chance to make a bit of noise.

But then Lillard was diagnosed with DVT, and the rest is history.

Won’t Go Down Without a Fight

Damian Lillard is a fighter.

Whether it’s fighting to stay off the streets of Oakland as a kid, on the basketball court, or in the boxing gym, Lillard knows how to get off the mat. 

His one-two punch of leg injuries, while gruesome, will not knock him out. 

But no one would blame him if it did. Lillard has given his all to two franchises. Both of them have responded by failing to surround him with the proper role players to yield true success. He’s had the worst luck of any NBA superstar in this current era, but through it all, Lillard has never complained— he has only competed.

It’s hard to imagine a world where Dame can be a critical part of an NBA title team at this stage. Yet despite everything he’s been through, or perhaps because of it, Lillard reportedly is in good spirits, ready to face the long road to recovery head on.