Damian Lillard Receives 1st Bill Walton Community Impact Award
Lillard returned to Portland Friday to accept the award from the Maurice Lucas Foundation.
Former Portland Trail Blazers superstar Damian Lillard returned to Portland Friday night to receive the first Bill Walton Community Impact Award from the Maurice Lucas Foundation. The award recognized Lillard for his 11 seasons with the Blazers from 2012-2023 and his impact on the Portland community.
The award, of course, also honored Blazers legend Bill Walton, who passed away in May at age 71. Walton was a big supporter of the foundation, named after Maurice Lucas, another late Blazers great. Walton and Lucas were teammates on the Blazers 1977 NBA Championship team and close friends.
Lillard accepted the award at the foundation’s 14th annual Celebration Dinner. The foundation explained the significance of the honor on its website before the event:
We will be honoring the remarkable legacy of our beloved friend and long-time loyal supporter, Bill Walton. Bill was with us from the start and his presence will be deeply missed this year. To honor Bill at our 14th Annual Maurice Lucas Foundation Celebration, we will be presenting the first-ever Bill Walton Community Impact Award to Damian Lillard, who embodies Bill Walton’s spirit of excellence, perseverance, and community engagement.
FOX 12’s Spencer Schacht reported on the event, getting interviews with Lillard and David Lucas, Maurice’s son and the foundation’s executive director.
In the news package, Lillard discussed what the award meant to him.
I felt honored because, obviously, me spending so much time in Portland playing for the Blazers and coming behind someone as as great as Bill Walton, not just on the floor but obviously off the floor, he was around this community and I ran into him a bunch of times.
… It makes it more of an honor because of what it represents, and that’s what you do for other people, how you are in the community, how you are lifting up others outside of yourself, and that’s something I take a lot of pride in.
Lillard’s long Blazers tenure came to an end last summer when Portland traded him to the Milwaukee Bucks.