Damian Lillard came into the NBA in the 2012-2013 season and he doesn’t like the current direction of the league.
In short, Lillard says that younger players are given too much credit too soon, and they play for individual stats, not the team.
“When I came into the league, you had to earn, not just what you get from the team … You had to earn your space on the team. It was no, ‘Oh, you’re the sixth pick of the draft, it’s your team.’ What is this ‘your team’ stuff?” said Lillard on JJ Redick’s The Old Man and the Three podcast, per AllHipHop.
“I think now the biggest difference is you don’t have that veteran presence. So you got players who are more talented than ever coming into the league, they’re getting picked 1,2,3,4,5, and they’re making more money than those picks ever made,” he added. “Not only that, now you’re giving them the keys to the franchise … There’s so many ways that the league is different. I think about it all the time. I don’t know if I can just play a long, long time, because I don’t enjoy what the NBA as a whole is becoming.”