Damian Lillard named 45th most famous athlete by ESPN
ESPN recently released a list of the 100 most famous athletes in the world.
According to ESPN, former Weber State Wildcat Damian Lillard is the 45th most famous athlete, ahead of those like Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook and New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, to name a few.
Of NBA players on the list, Lillard is ranked 11th.
The list used several sources — such as Forbes’ list of the top 100 highest-paid athletes, followers on social media and more — and factored them into a formula developed by ESPN’s director of sports analytics, Ben Alamar, to create a ranking system.
In the rankings, ESPN’s Johnette Howard calls Lillard “a Trail Blazers draft pick who — unlike Greg Oden, Sam Bowie and others — has actually exceeded projections for his career. Since arriving from Weber State, Lillard has embraced being Portland’s leader, not just its starting point guard.”
Expectations were low for the Trail Blazers this season with the departures of LaMarcus Aldridge and other starters. Lillard led Portland to the second round of the NBA Playoffs for the second time in his career.
While Lillard’s play on the court is enough to garner attention from the masses, his popularity is at its high level in part for what he does off the court as well.
Although he may no longer be in the playoffs, NBA fans may still see him on TV in various ads produced by State Farm in which he plays “Baby Dame”.
He has a passion for music, and has released several tracks under the moniker of “Dame D.O.L.L.A.”. His latest song entitled “Talk To Em” has garnered nearly 200,000 plays on SoundCloud since being released May 23. Lillard also released a music video in January that has been played over 780,000 times on YouTube.
His music doesn’t stop there. Lillard is also responsible for the social media phenomenon called “Four Bar Friday” where people rap four bars of their original raps on Instagram. The account dedicated to the feature has more than 70,000 followers.
With more than 2 million followers on Instagram and just over one million on Twitter, Lillard’s influence and reach is large and continues to grow.
Contact sports reporter Brandon Garside at bgarside@standard.net, on Twitter @BrandonGarside and on Facebook.com/BrandonGarsideSE.