Monday marked the return of Portland’s favorite son, as Lillard met with the media to discuss an earlier-than-anticipated homecoming. Last week, the nine-time All-Star announced he was returning to the Rose City two years after requesting a trade that took him 2,000 miles from the only NBA home he’d ever known.

When Damian Lillard felt his Achilles tendon snap in April, his first thought wasn’t of self-pity, as you might imagine. He didn’t ask, “Why me?” as others might have. “I think everybody else had more pity for me than I did,