{"id":135772,"date":"2025-06-30T04:45:19","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T04:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/135772\/"},"modified":"2025-06-30T04:45:19","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T04:45:19","slug":"deandre-ayton-finalizes-buyout-from-trail-blazers-enters-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/135772\/","title":{"rendered":"Deandre Ayton finalizes buyout from Trail Blazers, enters free agency"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1792742\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1792742\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/GettyImages-2192534698-784x441.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"784\" height=\"441\"  \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-1792742\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Deandre Ayton has averaged a double-double in each of his 7 seasons in the NBA.<\/p>\n<p>Former No. 1 overall pick Deandre Ayton has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/45612548\/sources-blazers-ayton-become-free-agent-buyout\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">finalized a buyout<\/a> with the Portland Trail Blazers, the team announced shortly after midnight Monday.<\/p>\n<p>The veteran center instantly becomes a surprise addition to a free agent market thinned by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/freeagents\/2025\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">reported re-signings<\/a>. The 26-year-old big man is coming off arguably the poorest season of his career, tying a career low in scoring (14.4 ppg) while playing in just 40 games with Portland last season.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Thank you for everything, DA. Grateful for your time in Rip City \u2764\ufe0f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/al1hs1tv8K\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/al1hs1tv8K<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Portland Trail Blazers (@trailblazers) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/trailblazers\/status\/1939543147534864866?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">June 30, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The first overall pick of the 2018 Draft, Ayton has averaged over 10 rebounds per game in each of his seven seasons in the league. He played a key role with his first team, the Phoenix Suns, reaching the NBA Finals in 2021 where they lost to the eventual-champion Milwaukee Bucks in six games.<\/p>\n<p>Ayton was traded to Portland two seasons later, one year after signing a max contract offer sheet with the Indiana Pacers that was subsequently matched by the Suns. Even with the addition of Ayton, the Blazers have not made the postseason since 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Ayton\u2019s departure further emphasizes Portland\u2019s pivot toward home-grown lottery picks Scoot Henderson (3rd overall, 2023), Shaedon Sharpe (7th overall, 2022) and Donovan Clingan (7th overall, 2024). The Blazers are also reportedly set to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/news\/celtics-blazers-trade-jrue-holiday-anfernee-simons\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">acquire veteran guard Jrue Holiday<\/a> in a trade with Boston.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deandre Ayton has averaged a double-double in each of his 7 seasons in the NBA. Former No. 1&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,26712,6,687,471,3967,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-135772","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-portland-trail-blazers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blazers","10":"tag-deandre-ayton-buyout","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-portland","13":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","14":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","15":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114770498388674227","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}