Damian Lillard says he won’t participate in “meaningless” games if not given a fair chance to make the playoffs. But here is why every NBA star should suit up when the season resumes.

Damian Lillard wants to play.

It feels important to say that at the top, given the public backlash Lillard has faced in the aftermath of telling Yahoo Sports that he had no interest in playing in a resumed season that does not offer Portland—3 ½ games back of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference, with 16 games to play when COVID-19, the coronavirus, made the sports world stand still in mid-March—a “true opportunity” to make the postseason. On ESPN, NFL analyst turned temporary NBA pundit Dan Orlovsky branded Lillard “a spoiled and entitled brat” for suggesting he wouldn’t play. On FS1, Lillard was called an egomaniac.

Lillard is none of those things, of course.