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When the Portland Trail Blazers drafted PG Damian Lillard sixth overall last year, expectations for the youngster were tempered. He was a little raw and didn’t play with the best competition in college.
However, the Weber State product has flourished in the NBA and has become a fantasy basketball superstar in the process. Lilliard averaged 19 points per game last year, to go along with 6.5 assists and 3.1 rebounds. He started all 82 games for Portland as well and was a low-end PG1 form the first week of the season.
This season Lillard has been even more productive for fantasy owners. He has scored 36 points in back-to-back games against the Cleveland Cavaliers and Minnesota Timberwovles, including his game on Tuesday where he dropped the game-winning three with seconds left. Over the two-game stretch, the point guard also added 16 assists, 15 three-pointers, and 14 rebounds. He has learned to fill out the box score perfectly, while also not allowing his point total to go down.
Lillard has also shot 92.1% from the charity strip this season and the point guard is one of the best from the line at his position. Everyone expects guards to be strong from the line, but Lillard has been borderline obsessive about his free throw preparation. Lillard has even raised his assist to turnover ratio to 2.63 from his 2.19 the year before. He has played much more efficiently this season and continues to improve with each passing game.
Lillard is at the front of the next generation of young point guards in the game and fantasy fans can take solace in the fact that we haven’t seen the best of the new Agent Zero just yet.
Adam McGill is the Senior Fantasy Sports Writer at Rant Sports. Follow him on Twitter @adammcgill83, like him on Facebook, or add him to you networks on Google here or here.
