1/ Damian Lillard's upbringing in East Oakland and how it has colored his confidence, mentality, and loyalty is a story more people should be obsessed with.

There are lessons upon lessons in his narrative that people trying to build a name for themselves should carve in stone.

2/ Damian grew up in East Oakland. He and his brother Houston grew up having each others' backs, out of necessity.

When he was 10 and Houston 13, they witnessed two men seconds away from pulling the trigger on one another.

Houston sprints to safety, dragging Damian to safety.

3/ Damian grew up in tune with his youth. He used whatever he could find at home to spin together costumes of his favorite wrestlers, often asking his brother Houston to roleplay as Triple H.

Damian made an entrance every single time -- he sang his own damn theme songs.

4/ But the city saw youth as nothing but a number.

Houston "used to whup his a** every single night" to prepare Damian for the realities of Oakland.

He wanted Damian to have his "boots strapped up, or you're getting your lunch took."

5/ Although Damian was 0-900 vs. his brother, that competitive fire and creative flow had him walk in the very next night with his Mankind mask.

The dude was relentless.

6/ That energy carried over when he played basketball with Houston and his older, bigger cousins one day at the park.

With size and experience disadvantages, Damian had no chance. His cousins swatted him, left him in the dust with killer crossovers, and laughed hysterically.

7/ "You laughing, huh? ... "

"I'm about to devote my whole life to this."

Then, Damian goes off to work with famous Instagram trainers, he hits his growth spurt and he's recruited by every elite basketball program in the nation.

Right?

8/ Wrong.

Damian doesn't even have a damn hoop. There's not a single one in the whole neighborhood.

But grandma had an oak tree out in her front yard and if you squinted just right, the branch at the top curled into a passible circle.

His first rim was a bent tree branch.

9/ Still, he made it work.

If the ball hit the front of the branch and dropped in, it didn't count. That's not how a real hoop would work, didn't you know?

Of course, he works on his game for months and then comes home one day to a brand new court his grandma bought.

Right?

10/ Wrong.

One day, the city had come and cut the oak tree down. A literal stump was all that was left.

Of course, he goes crazy. Upset enough that his grandpa notices and does something about it.

They walk to the elementary dumpster and find some plastic milk crates.

11/ Saw out the bottom of that crate and nail it to the telephone pole out front and you have a hoop.

This edition is lit -- by the streetlamp on top of the pole.

Damian shot until it was pitch black outside.

Swishes only of course. You can't bank in a shot on a round pole.

12/ Then Damian becomes good enough to join the local AAU team, the scouts notice him and he rises the ranks of basketball's meritocracy.

No.

His AAU team didn't have money to fund travel ball -- even if they stuffed 6 boys in a 2-bed hotel room.

13/ So yes, you know Damian. You've met him.

He's the kid selling raffle tickets and chocolate bars to get a chance to hoop at Reno.

The guy who shows you a binder of his teammates, hoping that you'd fund their next adventure.

14/ That's how Damian grew up.

Here's what his AAU coach Phil said in huddles when they were physically outmatched:

"You boys from the realest place on earth. You from East Oakland... These kids out there, they haven't seen half of what you've seen.

15/ I have been mildly misleading up to this point. While he was no LeBron, Damian he did catch some eyes.

The Oakland Soldiers were the bigger AAU squad and they consistently tried to recruit him.

But they didn't sell raffle tickets with him at the racetrack.

16/ He missed out on bigger stages but that's not what was important. It was loyalty to the Rebels beyond anything else.

He did the same when big programs tried to pull him from Weber state.

He did the same when NBA teams tried to pull him from Portland.

17/ That demonstrates his loyalty. This anecdote follows up on his competitive obsession.

Junior year at Weber State, Damian is a lock for the NBA. Everyone's draft boards have his name on it.

Of course, he breaks his foot. Out for the season.

18/ NBA teams start second-guessing him. After all, he's already 22. No telling who the explosive guard is after a broken foot.

His response?

He brings a chair into the gym. He shoots 400 shots sitting down, changing his entire release to get the arc it needs to get there.

19/ He shoots 200 shots on one leg.

He sits in the chair, practices jumpers off a behind the back dribble.

Sits in the chair, hits jumpers off a crossover angle.

And he repeats it the next day. And the next.

Foot heals, he's even more dominant than before.

20/ And this is why I absolutely love Dame.

When he sank that 37-footer bomb on Paul George and waved goodbye to them (i.e. Cancun on 3), the world went crazy.

I screamed in the UCLA Library during Finals Week.

Paul George said what we all felt:

"That's a bad shot."

21/ His response?

"You think I was improvising? You think I was panicking? You think I didn’t know exactly what I was doing?

...

"We didn’t grow up getting boxes of shoes in the mail... That shot is 20 years old. I’ve been making it since 2001 on a milk crate on Beverly Ave."

22/ The guy may have exited the 2020 Bubble, but I won't count him out yet.

Oh, and fun tidbit -- he's the only player with a jersey LETTER, not a jersey number.

That "0" you see is actually an "O."

O for Oakland.

O for Ogden (Weber State).

O for Oregon (Portland).

23/ So if you're trying to build a name for yourself, take a page from @Dame_Lillard's life.

1. Nothing is worth more than loyalty. Remember who you sold candy bars with.

2. 37-foot bombs aren't for everyone. They're only for people who can wet it on a milk crate at 10 PM.