Damian Lillard returns to the place where he never wanted to leave.
Lillard accepted the $ 42 million agreement over three years with the Portland Trail Blazers in the Free Agency, according to initiate Shams Charania. The 35 -year -old goalkeeper will be released all next season while rehabilitating a torn Achilles suffered during the NBA 2025 NBA qualifiers. Lillard has become a free agent shockingly when the Milwaukee Bucks abandoned and embraced his contract to sign Myles Turner at the start of the free agency.
Lillard was appointed All-Star last season before the injury by making an average of 24.9 points, 7.1 assists and 4.7 rebounds per match on 62% real shots and 37.6% three-point shooting out of nine attempts per game. These are phenomenal numbers for a smaller and aging goalkeeper, but the reality is that the Lillard experience of the Bucks was a monumental bust that led to victories from the series of playoffs.
Lillard had “multiple intermediate level exceptions and minimum offers from the pretenders to the NBA”, according to Charania, but chose to return to Portland instead. Lady has a case like the biggest blazer of all time, and now he will end her career with the team that has drafted him. Lillard also obtains a clause without exchange in the agreement.
Let’s make Lillard’s decision to sign with Portland for the player and the team.
Grade Damian Lillard to sign with Trail Blazers
The grass is not always greener. Lillard learned this lesson when he was exchanged from Portland to Milwaukee, where he spent two frustrating years not to build the necessary chemistry with Antetokounmpo. What seemed to be a wonderfully complementary pairing on paper has never really worked for various reasons, training styles to a casting casting casting for injuries.
It is easy to imagine that Lillard was amazed to learn that the Bucks canceled it earlier this month, but that has worked incredibly for him. He obtained the full salary of $ 113 million due to him in Milwaukee for the next two years while the team spreads the ceiling over five years. The press release also gave Dame the freedom to choose where he wanted to end his career, which was to be deeply satisfactory after his original commercial fiasco in Portland. Lillard would have had the heart to play for the Miami Heat who came out of their NBA final race in 2023, but the Bucks offered the best package, and Lillard had no choice but to get the most out of it.
How much lady will he be left in the tank on her return? An Achilles tear is perhaps the most difficult “common” injury to return to the NBA, and it is above all the case later that you get in your career. Kobe Bryant tore his Achilles at 34 and has never been the same again. Lillard is smaller and worse defensively. His traction shot and his game of pick-and-roll should still have a little public services, but it is difficult to be too optimistic about the level to which he will return.
Lillard could have hunted a ring elsewhere to close his career, but he chose to return to the city he considers at home. It would be fascinating to see the other offers and see the teams that really wanted him on the verge of a lost season rehabilitating a terrible injury. The bar for a return of the Blazers will be quite manageable: it will have to supervise young guards like Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe, be an ambassador of the organization and try to bring Portland back in the playoffs after a long drought.
The Blazers have the ideal defensive infrastructure to cover Lillard for this purpose. Portland can put a team of huge defenders around him at all other positions and let him carry the offense, if he is always able to do this post-compliance. Adjustment on paper makes sense, but there are a lot of crazy.
Lillard is also paid for a ton of money. He will win around $ 70 million next season without playing a match. It’s a great job if you can get it. I think it’s a wonderful story for a beloved star player that means much more for Portland than anywhere else. The days of Lillard as an elite player are probably finished, but if it strikes a clutch in a big situation in a uniform of the Blazers, the end of the book of stories will be written.
Grade: A
Trail Blazers grade to sign Damian Lillard
It is easy to understand why the Blazers wanted to bring Lillard back to the surface: it is a legend of franchise, and they want to do before his retirement. I just wonder how Lillard integrates into the overview of the reconstruction of Portland.
The Blazers apparently try to speed up their calendar for a thrust of the playoffs. Portland made a surprising decision to acquire Jrue Holiday via the Boston Celtics trade this off -season despite that it shows signs of aging last season. Today aged 35, holidays can still be an effective defender and leader, but he does not have as much punch to mark as before, and he is on a huge contract for three more years. There were whispers that the holidays were not delighted to land in Portland, but recovering Lillard in town will make him more comfortable.
The Blazers caused a vacation to fortify their defense and add a veteran presence to their young core. Portland has beautiful parts in place and begins to form a real defensive identity. Donovan Clingan, Toumani Camara and Deni Avdija are a very good young defensive court to build. Portland needs young scoot guards Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe to take a jump. In the end, Sharpe and Henderson will determine where this franchise goes for the rest of the decade.
I wonder what Henderson and Sharpe will feel Lillard’s return. If Henderson has trouble taking a step forward this season and Lillard returns like himself in a year, will the Blazers be ready to give lady the start and / or the closure of the minutes on the young? Will Lillard be happy to sit at the end of the games if he has the impression that he is even better than the young guards of the team?
I find that it is a kind of strange decision from Portland. Just when they declared to turn the corner of their reconstruction, they are now leaning towards their past to appease a legend of the franchise. There is a chance that it works very well for both parties, but I fear that there are drawbacks for Blazers.
Portland obtained a very good deal in exchange for Lillard. They have the choice of the first unprotected round in 2029 of the bucks and two Swaps. In this sense, Portland still has a lot of withdrawals to build a good team, but it seems that the front office could be on the hot seat if the alignment does not take a step forward this year. This is a reasonable salary for Lillard, and the non-exchange clause will not be as difficult to circumvent as for the Suns with Bradley Beal.
The Blazers have a climb uphill and a small margin of error in the West if they want to make the playoffs. They do not have a star player, and they are struggling with the huge Jerami Grant contract for several additional seasons that they apparently cannot give. It does not have the impression that this reconstruction of Portland is all that is close to the finished product, which is why adding lady seems a little strange. It’s a great story, but I’m skeptical, it’s the right decision for the Blazers.
Grade: C +
