Weber State point guard Damian Lillard is a rising prospect in the 2012 NBA Draft that is likely to be selected in among the top-10 picks, but that doesn't mean fans will necessarily understand the caliber of player their team is getting. Lillard is prepared for the doubters and relishes the opportunity to prove them all wrong, which is part of the reason why he has thrived in NBA Combine workouts and team interviews. As the top point guard prospect told Mark Spears of Yahoo! Sports, he doesn't expect to be an obscure name for long:
"There are some people who are real basketball fans who know what's really going on and know who I am," Lillard said. "But for a lot of people when I get drafted they'll say, 'Why did they pick him? Who is this guy?' It is not unfamiliar for me because I've always been that guy that people don't know. But then they start to learn about me.
"I feel like eventually I'm going to win people over because I'm going to get better."
Lillard finished as the second-leading scorer in the NCAA last season, and he draws on his Oakland roots for inspiration in his NBA journey:
"Just watching G.P. in the NBA to when I met him, he talks a lot because he got Oakland in him," Lillard said. "Just being from Oakland I got to hold that up. When I'm playing against somebody I feel like there is a certain attitude you have to have because you're from Oakland. I saw [Payton] do it against Michael Jordan and he had that look like, 'I'm from Oakland.'"
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