When you look at the legacy of Damian Lillard's career, all you see is success from his immediate arrival to the National Basketball Association. He's never avearged less than 19 points per game in his career and has plenty of accolades to go along with the numbers. Lillard has established himself as one of the greatest scoring point guards to ever play the game and when it comes to the most crucial moments of games, he's made a name for himself. “Dame Time" if we’re being technical.
Given the trademark, it’s somewhat surprising it took this long for a signature watch to come to fruition. Lillard teamed up with Tissot, the Official Watch and Timekeeper of the NBA, to unveil his signature watch which according to him took a lot of time to finalize.
A watch is just another stepping stone to Dame’s entrepreneur side. Lillard has a signature shoe but the Adidas athlete is also one of professional sports' most successful music artists. The “Dame Dolla” logo sits at the base of the second hand on his watch.
“Being able to launch a signature watch and have it represent something that's significant to my career,” Lillard says. “I obviously been on the “‘Dame Time”’ thing for about a decade now, which is crazy. But it was something I just did off the cuff… There wasn’t a lot of thought into it, I just did it. More of those moments started to happen and everybody was like ‘you need to find a watch partner.’”
It was a busy weekend for the eight-time All-Star in Indianapolis. Just 24 hours before Damian Lillard won his second straight 3-point contest and 48 hours before winning All-Star Game MVP, we sat down with Dame for an exclusive interview to discuss his new watch, NIL ruining school loyalty, Oakland sports, and his response to the Twitter memes and jokes about his teammate Thanasis Antetokounmpo.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Talk to me about your new watch with Tissot. I know you put a lot of time into this.
Well I obviously been on the “Dame Time” thing for about a decade now, which is crazy. But it was something I just did off the cuff. There wasn’t a lot of thought into it, I just did it. More of those moments started to happen and everybody was like “you need to find a watch partner.” Obviously I’m an inner city kid. I come from a tough place in Oakland. So I’m always conscious of who's going to access whatever I’m a part of. From my shoes to whatever the case may be, I want to make sure it’s not out of reach for hard-working people.
So obviously the partnership with Tissot kind of launched from the idea of that, but you know, anything that's strong is going to take time. And it's been a long time coming to get to this point in our partnership. So just being able to launch a signature watch and have it represent something that's significant to my career, but really who I am as a person, is great.
My logo is on the hand, it’s my Dame Dolla logo for my rap career, but it's something that's also something that I own that's really mine. So all of those things are details that make the story and make it special.
You’re someone who has demonstrated loyalty probably more than anyone in professional sports over the last decade professionally and in college. What’s your take on NIL changing the landscape of collegiate sports?
I think there’s no loyalty in business and I think a lot of these things have become business. You think about NIL, you think about kids being “amateurs” but they have representation and managers, they have sponsorships and endorsements, stuff like that. So they're viewed as a business. They’re being stripped of their innocence a lot earlier now. When I went to school I had pride, I still have pride as an alumni at Weber State.
I take pride in it, but it's not like that anymore. It's business. It's like, okay, I went to school, but now the NIL money at this school is better so I'm leaving, you know? Now a scholarship is a one year deal. It was a business when I was in school but it was one-sided, now you see everyone treating it like a business.
You’re also proud of Oakland. We did piece a few weeks ago on, unfortunately, Oakland losing its final professional sports team. Marshawn Lynch is an athlete who has been very vocal about this situation. Do you have a stance on the situation in your hometown?
Sports in Oakland meant a lot to my childhood. From the junior warrior league, that’s what I played in in elementary school and middle school. Just the different sponsorships and partnerships that came from professional sports to our local boys and girls club. You know, you see the Warriors logo or the A’s or the Raiders logo on the wall, there’s an attachment, it was Oakland.
You look at it now and it’s sad to see how it’s unfolding. It was a significant part of our city and our culture. It’s causing some problems now without it there. The crime and the robberies and people’s stuff getting broken into- and I’m not blaming that on professional sports teams leaving but it was positive things that we had that we don’t have anymore.
Thanasis Antetokounmpo has been making rounds on Twitter (X). People saying they can beat him one-on-one and he’s only on the team because of his brother. Do you have anything for the people coming at his neck right now?
Here’s the thing about TA. People try to be funny but I would put good money that a lot of those people talking on Twitter wouldn't be able to beat him in the game of one-on-one. Like his defensively. he’s big, he’s strong, he’s athletic, he’s competitive. It’s disrespectful. I see a lot of stuff on social media about TA, there’s people who think they are more talented or have more ability but they could never take his spot. You're not going to find a guy that's more about the team and shows up and works hard.
He’s always in the weight room, always on the court getting his work in. He says the right stuff to the team. He has locker room energy every day. I mean, he's the top of the line at his role on our team. And I have a hard time thinking anybody could replace him at what he does for our team. It’s easy to talk on the internet but being somebody that’s behind closed doors with him, I respect him a lot. I think if people got to know him and got to see what he puts into it, they wouldn’t be joking as much.
