Former nine-time All-Star Milwaukee Bucks point guard Damian Lillard seems to be approaching a decision about his future.<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-2 Weber State product, who turns 35 this month, tore his Achilles tendon in Game 4 of an eventual five-game first round playoff series defeat to the Indiana Pacers this spring. Given the nature of the injury and his relative NBA dotage, it’s likely he’ll miss most or even all of the 2025-26 season, so essentially were he to sign with a new club he would be rehabbing all year.<\/p>\n
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In a controversial move, Milwaukee opted to stretch-and-waive the $112.6 million remaining on Lillard’s contract, making space to poach 3-and-D center Myles Turner from the Pacers. Turner, 29, had been Indiana’s longest-tenured player, and had seen his 10 years of loyal service capped with a seven-game NBA Finals appearance last month.<\/p>\n
But the Pacers reportedly balked at his free agent price ahead of what looks to be a bit of a down season, while the team’s best player, two-time All-NBA point guard Tyrese Haliburton, recovers from his own Achilles tendon tear. Milwaukee swept in, signing Turner to a four-year, $107 million deal. The team will now pay Lillard $22.5 million a season across the next five years to not play in Milwaukee.<\/p>\n
Lillard could alternately rehabilitate home in Portland with his own team and his family.<\/p>\n
Per longtime NBA insider Chris Haynes, Lillard may not take a “gap year,” after all. He is amenable to recuperating under the watchful eye of a team, after all, and is “receiving ample interest.”<\/p>\n
In 58 healthy bouts for the Bucks last year, Lillard averaged 24.9 points on .448\/.376\/.921 shooting splits, 7.1 dishes and 4.7 boards per bout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former nine-time All-Star Milwaukee Bucks point guard Damian Lillard seems to be approaching a decision about his future.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3774],"tags":[2037,7,1717,125,113,126,3866,121,367,6,114,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-146077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indiana-pacers","8":"tag-achilles-tendon","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-chris-haynes","11":"tag-damian-lillard","12":"tag-indiana","13":"tag-indiana-pacers","14":"tag-indianapacers","15":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","16":"tag-myles-turner","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-pacers","19":"tag-tyrese-haliburton"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114793592037284032","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146077","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=146077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}