After Damian Lillarddropped 51 points on the Warriors last month to help the Trail Blazers beat Golden State by 32, Steve Kerr said that Lillard “looked like Steph Curry out there” during the game. About a week later, a Pacers reporter told Lillard that he looked like he was “playing like Stephen Curry” during a 20-point quarter against Indiana. In both instances, Lillard didn’t appreciate the "compliment."
Lillard gets what people are trying to say when they compare him to Curry, but at the same time, people don’t tell Curry that he “looked like Damian Lillard out there” after a big game. So he wants people to stop comparing him to Curry. With the Blazers in Oakland to play the Warriors tonight, he told reporters that he finds it to be “disrespectful.”
“I respect Steph Curry,” he said. “Because what he’s doing is amazing. But I’m my own man. So don’t come to me and say I’m impersonating him. You telling me I’m impersonating somebody by doing well at my job is disrespectful…I just think you respect the man as the man that they are. You can respect what Steph Curry’s doing and love what Steph Curry’s doing. But that has nothing to do with me. I’m my own man.”
Lillard also said that, by comparing him to Curry, he feels as though people are losing sight of who he is.
“Respect me for being Damian Lillard,” he said. “Don’t say I’m impersonating somebody or trying to do what somebody else is doing. Because I’m not. I play for the Blazers. I went to Weber State. I’m from Oakland. There is no comparison.”
Point taken.
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[via Oregon Live]
