Damian Lillard wants to stay with Blazers, co-founds insole company

Portland Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard said he wants to stay with the franchise that drafted him in 2012 and will use this offseason to get healthy and strengthen his game.

Meanwhile, Lillard also plans to develop a new business.

Lillard spoke about his desire to stay in Portland when he spoke to CNBC on Monday about Move, a performance footwear brand he co-founded with business partner, Nate Jones. Move started in December. It attracted more than $100,000 in first-month sales through direct-to-consumer sales, and it forecasts $1 million in sales for 2022.

Lillard said the consumer product is “sports and athlete friendly.” He added that Move wants to help basketball players avoid foot injuries such as plantar fasciitis, which he suffered earlier in his NBA career.

“[Young athletes] I need to wear this because the things you do as an athlete are harder on your body and your feet than when I was growing up,” Lillard said. “It’s harder on [younger players] than it was on me.”

Lillard, 31, hasn’t played since January as he recovers from surgery and has played a career-low 29 games this season due to the injury. Still, the Weber State product averaged 24 points and 7.3 assists last season and was named one of the league’s greatest players in February to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the NBA.

But after uncertainty around his future with the team surfaced last summer, Lillard saw the Blazers go through a rocky transition on and off the court in the 2021-22 NBA season. Yet he wants to stay.

“I have no intention of not being a Portland Trail Blazer,” Lillard said. “I want to be here, and I think they want me to be here.”

The Blazers fired former coach Terry Stotts last year. Team CEO Chris McGowan resigned last November, and a month later the Blazers fired chief basketball officer Neil Olshey over allegations of workplace misconduct.

On the field, the Blazers made roster changes, including trading Blazers co-star CJ McCollum to the New Orleans Pelicans to free up salary cap space. Then, last month, the team shut down Lillard for the rest of the season and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2012-13 — Lillard’s rookie year.

Asked to describe his 10th NBA season in one word, Lillard called it a “reset.”

“I feel born again – health-wise and mentally,” he said.

Lillard will earn $42 million next season as part of a $176 million extension he signed in 2019, according to spotrac, a website that tracks sports contracts. This summer, he’s also eligible to sign another over $100 million extension. That would push the average annual value, or AAV, of Lillard’s deal to more than $50 million per season.

Lillard warned against naysayers and media speculation surrounding his future.

“Everyone is like, ‘He’s going to do this. He’s going to do that,'” Lillard said. “But the game is so watered down, and the game is so fugazi (fake) that people literally won’t believe what you say even if you tell them directly.”

Although Lillard wanted to stay with the Blazers, when asked if he would accept a trade, he replied: “If they came to me and they wanted to trade me – I’m not going to fight them for wanting me. I don’t. I don’t want to be where I’m not wanted. But I don’t think that’s the case.

Off the court, Lillard earns around $15 million in endorsements, according to Forbes. The deals include brand deals with Anheuser-Busch’s Modelo brand, Disney-owned Hulu, and a reported $100 million deal with sneaker company Adidas.

On the investment front, Lillard is a co-owner of Players TV, a channel which launched on Samsung TV Plus in 2020. Additionally, he owns Damian Lillard Toyota in Oregon and goes by Dame DOLLA in his music career.

Now Lillard is focused on building Move. Lillard said Jones pitched the idea to build the insole brand in 2019. “As soon as we talked about it, my mind went to my own foot injuries,” he added.

Lillard recalled his battles with plantar fasciitis earlier in his career. The injury causes tissue inflammation near the heel of the foot and can be caused by improper insoles in sneakers. Lillard said athletes’ “lack of awareness and self-care” of their feet is a problem.

“It’s even worse now,” Lillard said, referring to young athletes who tend to play year-round to develop their skills and gain exposure. “It’s more important for them to be a step ahead of this stuff. So I felt like it was a major marketing opportunity, not just to be part of a plan to successful business, but also to have a major impact on the health of many of these young athletes.”

Jones, who works with Lillard as an agent and athlete marketer at Goodwin Sports Management, is co-founder and co-CEO of Move. Jones said the company is working with a Florida-based company Footcare Expressa well-known podiatry clinic used by NBA teams to create custom insoles for players.

Move hit the market last year with its Game Day and Game Day Pro insoles, and Jones added that it was a performance equipment company.

The footwear insoles market is dominated by Merck-owned Dr. Scholl’s brand and is expected to reach $4.5 billion by 2027, according to a global market research firm. Fortune Business Insights. But Jones said branded insole makers aren’t targeting young athletes when it comes to foot care. He called it white space that could benefit Move’s growth.

Jones said Move made $120,000 in sales in December. Its website converts 5% of traffic into customers, and Move uses social media to build brand awareness and hasn’t spent funds on consumer acquisition costs with marketing or heavy promotion.

“And the response we’ve gotten so far lets us know we’re making progress,” Jones said. “Introducing Dame to the current market, the potential market, and how we’re going about it in a different way – and telling a story to parents and kids about why professional athletes swear by [specialized insoles] “Lady was on board.”

After targeting young basketball players, Move wants to develop volleyball players.

“A lot of sports startups end up failing because they try to be too many things for too many people,” Jones said. “We’re focusing on basketball, and then organically we’re going to start branching out into other sports. And there’s a lot of overlap between basketball and volleyball.”

Other investors include Phoenix Suns star Chris Paul, former NBA guard Jamal Crawford and prominent sports agent Aaron Goodwin. The terms of their investments were not disclosed. Jones added that Move wants to raise an additional $2 million this year as the company seeks to expand.

“The stage of my career I’m in is more about making an impact than looking for an opportunity for myself,” Lillard said of his involvement with Move. “I want to have my business cap – but a lot of my [business] is about impact. I know from experience that something like this is going to have a major impact and can help a lot of athletes.”