After being waived by the Milwaukee Bucks, Damian Lillard is an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career. It’s certainly not the circumstances in which he’d imagine, after the Bucks unexpectedly waived and stretched the final two years of his deal, but now Lillard has the opportunity to join any team he wants.
The soon-to-be 35 year old is currently rehabbing from a torn ACL he suffered in the playoffs, so he could take his time to join a team, perhaps waiting until next summer even. However, Chris Haynes reports that the nine-time All Star may consider joining a team this summer “under the right terms and conditions.”
Lillard has already drawn interest from several teams, including the Golden State Warriors, Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers, though it’s unclear how motivated those teams are to get a deal done. All three of those teams also aren’t in need of a starting point guard at the moment, and even though Lillard will be out for most if not all of next season, when he does return it’s highly unlikely that he’d want to come off the bench. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t start on any of those teams, the Lakers for instance would have a really potent backcourt with Luka Doncic and Lillard. The same goes for the Celtics and the Warriors, though his fit in both places isn’t as seamless.
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When Lillard was originally traded to Milwaukee, his preferred landing spot was the Miami Heat, but with Jimmy Butler no longer on the team, and the Heat further away from title contention than they were when Lillard was originally on the trading block, that pairing seems unlikely.
There is also the option that Lillard decides to sit out next season without a team, fully rehab from his injury, and then joins a title contender next summer. Either way, Lillard would have his pick of the litter in whatever team he wants to join.
Whichever team adds Lillard, whether it’s this summer or next, it will be at an incredibly steep discount now that he will be making roughly $22.5 million in each of the next five seasons from the Bucks. Milwaukee waived and stretched Lillard’s contract in order to make room for the signing of Myles Turner, which allows Lillard to sign elsewhere. It’s unclear what Lillard would take on a new deal, but he’ll surely take a massive pay cut for the chance of playing on a team that has a strong chance of winning a championship.
