Damian Lillard wins 3-point Contest while repping Weber State; Lauri Markkanen out in first round

In the locker room before the players went out onto the court for the All-Star 3-point Contest, Damian Lillard told his competition that he was leaving on Saturday night with some hardware.

“I told them, I’m winning tonight, and everybody kind of laughed,” Lillard said. “I told them I was serious and I’m sure happy I got it done.”

The Weber State alum, wearing a specially designed Weber State uniform, scored just enough (26 points) in the first round to knock Utah Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen out of the contest and then Lillard scored 26 again in the final round to edge out Buddy Hield, who scored 25 in the final.

“The fact that I lived here for four years, went to school here, I met so many friends and so many people that I still interact with and deal with on a personal level here, and just what I’ve laid down in this area, on the Wasatch Front,” Lillard said. “I think it was just perfect.”

A little over a week ago, Lillard was having a conversation about coming back to Utah and someone mentioned that it would be cool for him to wear his Weber State jersey. From there, he took the idea and ran with it.

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The uniform he wore had his college number, had stars on the shorts representing each of his All-Star appearances and on the back was the name “Dolla,” his NBA nickname. He hasn’t decided at this point what he’s going to do with the uniform, but he said he’s keeping it and won’t be giving it away.

Now that Lillard has won the 3-point Contest, there were many wondering if he would come back to compete again, or if he would walk away now that he has the trophy.

“I feel like I would want to just not do it no more,” Lillard said. “But as soon as I won it, I was like I think I want to do it, again. So, I don’t know, maybe. We’ll see.”

In practicing for the contest, Markkanen said that he had a few rounds of scoring 28 or 29 and had one round where he scored 34. But once the lights were on and the pressure was high, he wasn’t able to convert as many as he’d hoped.

“It’s different than the practice court, for sure,” Markkanen said. “I knew it was gonna be different in the competition so 25 was the number I had in mind. Then probably 30 (in the final round). That was the goal that I had.”

Markkanen didn’t make it to the final round after his score of 20 wasn’t enough to move on. But Markkanen has bigger fish to fry this weekend and is looking forward to Sunday’s main event, when he makes his All-Star debut as a starter.

“Looking forward to it.”