For everyone in Dub Nation who didn’t keep up with the All-Star game activities after Steph Curry was ruled out with injury, we still had a hooper make the Bay Area proud.
Oakland’s very own Damian Lillard hasn’t logged a single NBA minute this season. Not one. The torn left Achilles he suffered last April turned his year into rehab sessions, film study, and long nights watching the league move without him. No rhythm, no box scores stacking up in the morning, no fourth quarters to close with that familiar wave to the crowd, just patience, resistance bands, and the quiet work of stitching a body back together.
And then Saturday night at the Intuit Dome, he stepped onto the All-Star floor like he’d never left. Like the season hadn’t passed him by. Like the clock had been waiting for him the whole time. Lillard became just the third player ever to win the Three-Point Contest three times, joining Larry Bird and Craig Hodges in that rare air. He poured in 29 in the final round to edge out Devin Booker, who felt a fingertip away before missing his final three shots. It was tense in that slow-burn way, dramatic without being loud, and unmistakably Dame.
This season while everyone else stayed sharp through the grind, legs heavy and timing calibrated through repetition, Lillard was rehabbing and rehearsing the same jumper until it felt like breathing again. No nightly stat lines to lean on, no defensive schemes to solve, just muscle memory and that Oakland confidence that doesn’t blink when the lights get hot.
“I came out here excited to do it,” Lillard said. “I can’t say I knew I’d win but I came in confident. This is my sixth time doing it, this felt like a game to me.” That’s the key. Six appearances means six run-throughs with pressure humming in your ears. You learn the racks, the clock, the little half-step between spots. You understand when to rush and when to breathe. The moment doesn’t feel massive anymore. It feels familiar.
There was poetry woven through it. Lillard [grew up in Oakland,](https://geoffreyslive.com/sports/damian-lillard-oakland-star-still-rising/) once a kid in the stands during All-Star Weekend, staring at the court like it was another universe. That Bay foundation, precision married to fearless swagger, still travels with him. You can see it in the way he stands, in the calm between shots.
He even admitted he was “praying for his downfall” while Booker finished, grinning as he said it. No fake humility, no polished clichés, just two elite shooters understanding that competition, when it’s real, is ruthless.
This third title puts Lillard alongside legends. Bird won three straight from 1986 to 1988. Hodges followed from 1990 to 1992. Lillard now owns crowns in 2023, 2024, and 2026, different seasons, different circumstances, same steady release. And for Portland fans, it felt bigger than a trophy. After the Milwaukee detour, after the injury that erased a season, seeing Dame stand tallest on the league’s brightest weekend was reassurance that one of the game’s most exciting players isn’t done yet.
The shot is still there, rising clean and true. The confidence still hums beneath the surface. Dame Time doesn’t need a regular season to exist. It just needs a ball, a rim, and a stage big enough to matter. That’s Damian Lillard. THAT’S Town Bizness.