In the 12 years that he has been a part of the NBA, Damian Lillard has created a reputation of being amongst the most reliable offensive players that a roster could have. Along with star scorer Giannis Antetokounmpo, he was instrumental in Milwaukee Bucks all the way to the playoffs this season. At the same time, however, the player has received severe backlash over his defensive skills. According to CBS reporter Brad Botkin, Lillard was “playing some of the laziest, flat-out worst defense of his career” this season, with the reporter calling him out to be a “pretty apathetic defender.” As the critique continues even during the Bucks off-season, Lillard has now come out with a response.

An Instagram handle, today, highlighted a clip from over a decade ago, featuring Damian Lillard’s pre-draft workout. The young star looked to be unstoppable in the clip, as he continuously kept his body in motion by making dunks, then dashing across the court to repeat the action, and then returning to drop a three-pointer. While the individual who uploaded wanted to highlight the player’s offensive prowess, an individual in the comments used it to criticize Lillard.

“Defensive drills, he is probably the worst defensive point guard in the NBA, he can’t guard anybody,” the comment read. Surprisingly, the remark caught the attention of the 8x NBA All-Star himself, who responded by saying “ni**as say anything… look up the #s and stop listening to the narrative from 10 years ago”.

Along with the above remark, Damian Lillard also featured the clip on his official Instagram story and wrote “Amazing how so many ppl talk sh*t but be punks in y’all everyday life. Ni**as that fold twice a week when sh*t go wrong tryna critique sumn … I’m really from sumn different and that’s why most don’t understand … most don’t do they homework … I’m really done w folks”.

Coming into the Milwaukee Bucks, Damian Lillard was expected to take up the majority of the responsibilities of Jrue Holiday, both of whom were exchanged by their teams for each other. However, given the player’s 6-foot 2 size, and his skills primarily devoted to the offense, did not allow him to be as efficient as expected. He ended the ongoing NBA season with a defensive rating of 117.8, which did not even allow him to crack the Top 25. But that is not to say, the guard’s efforts have been void or unnoticed.

Gilbert Arenas defends Damian Lillard in light of the criticism: “We need someone to score”

Despite the fact that he retired from the NBA almost 12 years ago, former Washington Wizards player Gilbert Arenas still keeps a close tab on the basketball world. The player had his ear to the ground back in October as well, when the critique around Damian Lillard’s defense was first starting to develop. In an episode of his long running ‘Gil’s Arena’ show, the then 41-year-old highlighted that the Bucks took in Lillard because they supposedly wanted to improve their offensive lineup. Therefore, the new addition should be compared on the same grounds as Jrue Holiday.

“(Holiday) didn’t bring what Dame is bringing,” said Arenas. “Why does he need to be Jrue Holiday when they got rid of Jrue Holiday? So, whatever Jrue Holiday brought, they were like, ‘We don’t want it.’ … first team All-Defense, ‘We don’t want it. We need someone to score.’”

‘Dame Time’ had certainly shown during the Bucks recent run just what he is capable of in terms of scoring effort. Unfortunately, with certain expectations placed on his head, the critique about his defensive skills is not set to go away anytime soon.

Before leaving, be sure to check out some insights that Shaquille O’Neal’s ex-agent, Leonard Armato, shared about WNBA star rookies Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark.