{"id":154696,"date":"2025-07-08T01:42:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T01:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/154696\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T01:42:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T01:42:14","slug":"bucks-officially-stretch-lillard-buy-out-micic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/154696\/","title":{"rendered":"Bucks Officially Stretch Lillard, Buy Out Micic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>6:56 pm: Micic gave up $6.1MM in his buyout agreement with the Bucks, who stretching his remaining $2MM across three seasons for annual cap hits of $667K, reports <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/live-blogs\/nba-free-agency-2025-offseason-trade-rumors-news\/fnwUjcuMFEqi\/bdAeMzSVewDC\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Eric Nehm of The Athletic<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-438034\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Damian-Lillard-Milwaukee-Bucks-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\"  \/>5:09 pm: The Bucks have officially waived point guards <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/l\/lillada01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.hoopsrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-07-07_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Damian Lillard<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/micicva01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.hoopsrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-07-07_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Vasilije Micic<\/a>, according to the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/players\/transactions\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">transaction log at NBA.com<\/a>. Both moves had been anticipated as Milwaukee looked to clear the cap space necessary to sign free agent center <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/t\/turnemy01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.hoopsrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-07-07_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Myles Turner<\/a> to a four-year, $107MM contract.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hoopsrumors.com\/2025\/07\/bucks-to-waive-damian-lillard-stretch-remaining-salary.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Reports last Tuesday<\/a> indicated that Lillard would have his remaining $112.6MM salary spread across five seasons instead of two using the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hoopsrumors.com\/2024\/08\/hoops-rumors-glossary-stretch-provision-3.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">stretch provision<\/a> in order to create immediate cap relief for Milwaukee.<\/p>\n<p>Lillard is expected to miss most or all of the 2025\/26 season while he recovers from the torn Achilles he suffered during the first round of the playoffs in April. The nine-time All-Star has reportedly drawn interest already from <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hoopsrumors.com\/2025\/07\/free-agency-notes-turner-lillard-kuminga-clarkson-beasley.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">many<\/a> <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hoopsrumors.com\/2025\/07\/checking-in-on-top-remaining-nba-free-agents-4.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">teams<\/a> around the NBA, but hasn\u2019t yet decided whether he\u2019ll sign a new contract this offseason and is <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hoopsrumors.com\/2025\/07\/lillard-open-to-signing-this-offseason-wont-rush-decision.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">said to be in no rush<\/a> to make that decision.<\/p>\n<p>As for Micic, the expectation after he was <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hoopsrumors.com\/2025\/07\/bucks-to-trade-connaughton-to-hornets-for-micic.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">acquired<\/a> from Charlotte in exchange for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/connapa01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.hoopsrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-07-07_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Pat Connaughton<\/a> and a pair of second-round picks was that he would agree to reduce his $8.1MM cap hit in order to become a free agent and generate a little extra cap space for the Bucks. According to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MikeAScotto\/status\/1942331513657246205\" rel=\"nofollow\">Twitter link<\/a>), the two sides did reach an agreement on a buyout, though it\u2019s unclear at this point how much of his salary Micic gave up.<\/p>\n<p>Micic has played a pretty limited role in the NBA during the past couple seasons after starring in Europe for most of his career. In 101 total games for Oklahoma City, Charlotte, and Phoenix, he averaged 6.8 points and 3.9 assists in 19.4 minutes per contest.<\/p>\n<p>Rumors in recent months have linked Micic to multiple EuroLeague teams \u2014 while it\u2019s not clear exactly which one he\u2019ll end up with, it seems likely that the 31-year-old Serbian will head back overseas to resume his playing career.<\/p>\n<p>It appears both Lillard and Micic were technically placed on waivers on Sunday evening, as the NBA\u2019s transaction log lists Turner\u2019s deal as having gotten done last night. Still, if those cuts occurred after 4:00 pm Central time, neither player will officially clear waivers until Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"6:56 pm: Micic gave up $6.1MM in his buyout agreement with the Bucks, who stretching his remaining $2MM&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3775],"tags":[7,103,125,102,121,3871,6,10757],"class_list":{"0":"post-154696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-milwaukee-bucks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bucks","10":"tag-damian-lillard","11":"tag-milwaukee","12":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","13":"tag-milwaukeebucks","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-vasilije-micic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114815077359738712","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154696","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=154696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}