Damian Lillard took a sledgehammer to ring culture with brutally honest assessment of modern NBA

Welcome to Layup Lines, our basketball newsletter where we’ll prep you for the tip-off of tonight’s action, from what to watch to bets to make. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every afternoon.

There’s no denying championships are an integral part of how we evaluate a player’s career.

Especially in the NBA, where one player carries so much value relative to a single player in other leagues, rings are and should be a factor in how we discuss the game and its greatest players.

However, the weight we place on rings — whether a player has one and how many — seems to be tilting further and further in a direction that isn’t conducive to smart basketball conversations. It’s created the environment we now know as “ring culture,” and Damian Lillard is over it.

“While I understand we play to win championships — we all want to win a championship — we can’t keep acting like the journey doesn’t matter. We can’t keep doing that,” Lillard said on JJ Redick’s podcast, The Old Man & The Three. “There are so many ways that the league is different. And I think about it all the time where I’m like, man, I don’t know if I can play a long, long time because I don’t enjoy what the NBA as a whole is becoming.”

We can’t keep acting like the journey doesn’t matter. That’s a bar.

Lillard added that he’s been able to stay true to himself and his desire to win in Portland because he has a “real life” away from the game. It seems he’s able to unplug and not drown in conversations that, I agree, make the game a little less fun.

I can’t pinpoint when it started — though I’m sure debate TV and social media only enhanced it — but the emphasis on rings watered down NBA talk. The pursuit of the great Michael Jordan’s six rings in six tries by players like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James likely kicked it off, but our sole focus on those pursuits have left us underappreciating anyone who falls short — which is everyone.

So instead of talking about how incredible LBJ and Kevin Durant have been all these years, we talk ad nauseum about James’ 4-6 record in the finals or Durant joining the Warriors.

As someone who puts up mind-blowing stats but has never sniffed a finals, Lillard hears it all. But if Lillard were to ever fold under the faux pressure of needing a championship to validate his greatness and leave Portland to team with other stars — like James or Durant did — he’d be chastised for that too.

Now, it seems, he’d rather just leave the game completely than be discredited for wanting to stay with the team that drafted him and enjoying the journey of trying to figure it out in one place. That’s a shame, and I hope “ring culture” falls before players who think like Lillard stop existing.

March Madness is upon us. The NCAA men’s First Four games tipped off Tuesday night and continue Wednesday before we get into the field of 64.

Soon enough, we’ll have a champion, but not before we see some incredible buzzer-beaters, Cinderella runs and monster individual performances. Some of those players are headed for the NBA soon, so my colleague Bryan Kalbrosky put together a bracket based solely on which prospects we want to see as much as possible.

One key takeaway here: Arkansas needs to go all the way.

“Arkansas is the No. 8 seed in the West and they have a tough first-round opponent with Illinois. But they also have two likely lottery picks, Nick Smith Jr. and Anthony Black, and two other potential first-rounders with Ricky Council IV and Jordan Walsh. Let me see them play as many games as possible!”

I don’t get to keep up with college hoops as much, so I’ll definitely be glued to these teams.

One to Watch

(All odds via Tipico.)

Kings (-1.5, -115) at Bulls (-105), O/U 235.5, 8 PM ET

The Kings have the third-best record in the Western Conference and are only slight favorites over the Bulls, who are 11th in the East. Sure, the Kings are on the road in this one, but the odds here seem a bit disrespectful to a legit good team coming off a loss in its last game. Give me Sacramento to cover 1.5 points.

Shootaround

— Sykes: Nikola Jokic is losing a grip on his 3rd MVP because of defense

— Stephen A. Smith doesn’t think Jokic is the MVP frontrunner

— Stephen Curry roasted Chris Paul about his age after driving right by him

— The Kings trolled a bleeding Brook Lopez by playing “Bleeding Love”