Damian Lillard is threatening to sit out games if the NBA won't guarantee his Trailblazers a "true opportunity" for the playoffs in a return to play ... saying, "I'm not going to be participating."
"I'm telling you that right now," the superstar guard told Yahoo Sports in a phone interview Tuesday. "And you can put that [expletive] in there."
The NBA has been kicking around the idea of a shortened regular season for its comeback ... reportedly eyeing a possible plan of a few regular season games followed by the playoffs.