Chris Boucher, Alvin Williams on Damian Lillard's comments about NBA narratives hurting basketball

On the latest episode of Hustle Play, Alvin Williams and Chris Boucher talk about how career success shouldn't be defined by the amount of championships a player has won. Listen to the full episode on the podcast feed or watch on our YouTube.

Video Transcript

- I heard Damian Lillard on a podcast, and he was talking about how he doesn't necessarily like what the NBA is becoming. It's not about the journey anymore, he was saying. It's more about-- this guy has a championship, so he's looked at one way, compared to a guy who doesn't. What's your take on that, Chris?

CHRIS BOUCHER: I mean, obviously, he's been in the league for so long, so he's seen the change. You can ask somebody like him. He's going to see the change. He doesn't need to play right now to see that the NBA has changed-- physicality or whatever. When I talk to Thad, Big Cat, and these guys-- the league that they tell me that they were playing in-- it's not what it is now at all. It's not even close.

But a lot of things change. I think the game got faster and all that. But some people used to be just able to be in-- they were happy to be in a team and just be a rebounder. They were happy to be in a team and just be a facilitator or whatever. People were sticking to their role, and they were just happy to be in the league and do it. Now it's kind of hard, now, to find somebody that just wants to do that job. And I think it changed a lot of stuff, where you get criticized for not having a championship, for example, because it's like you're not a winner. Well, I'm still one of the greatest players out here.

So it's not about the journey anymore. It's really about winning a championship or winning MVP, and everybody's just chasing, chasing, chasing, and not realizing that just being in the NBA and being one of the top 20 players is a lot, already. For a guy like Westbrook-- another perfect example. He was a triple-double master, and now look how he's talking to the media. People seems to forget a lot quick.

And that's why the NBA is not the same anymore. It's because now you can't even bring a Hall of Famer to a camp without kids being like, who you are? Dude, he's a Hall of Famer-- respect, and that's it-- not because he's not in the league anymore. And everything changed from that perspective. And obviously, it's a generation thing, but it's starting to affect guys like Damian Lillard, who feel like they did-- they put a lot into the game. They put a lot into that league. And they still don't get the respect that they deserve.

- Alvin, what are your thoughts about how the game has changed, and maybe a lot of people are not looking at the journey of a player but just whether he has a championship or not?

ALVIN WILLIAMS: Yeah, no, that's facts. That's what it is when you're chasing greatness. And once again, the goalpost moves then because you can do everything, you can be the leading scorer in NBA history. You can do all these things, and then they can say, how many championships you got? So they boil it down to championships.

Once that piece started happening where guys started-- teams start formally with multiple superstars-- but even back in the day, when I was watching in the '80s, teams had three or four great players. You look at the Lakers. They had Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Byron Scott. The Celtics had Bird, McHale, Parrish, Danny Ainge. They had-- who was the point guard? They had "Tiny" Archibald at one point. They had Dennis Johnson, another point-- they had great players, all across the board. Sixers had-- Doc, Moses, Mo Cheeks, Bobby-- they had great players.

But the structure of the NBA, where collective bargaining agreement put everything in place, where the salary cap and all of these things-- now it's more of control how players-- so now players are saying, all right, I get a shorter contract or I may take a two-year deal, play here, and then go somewhere else. Players got more control. So now people are frowned upon-- any time you start seeing players have more and more control with their careers and their decision making and what they're going to do, then it's always going to be a problem with that because that's not what the norm has been. The norm was, you're going to sign this long contract. You're going to play for this team until we want to get rid of you, and this is what it is. Players have more control of what their destiny is.

So now it's like, all right, how are we going to judge them? They don't have championships. So now I'm going to move and go somewhere else. All right, now you're frowned upon that. You're running from it. From the outside, I think, from anything, if you're a businessman, whatever you do-- the journey has to be respected. If the journey is not respected, then nobody coming from behind there is ever going to understand the true meaning of success.

I watched a story on him today. His journey-- I never knew nothing about his upbringing, his childhood everything. And it's like, God damn. Like, damn. For real? So if anybody ever say anything to me about anybody and him-- anything, they can't--