Damian Lillard Back to the Blazers Is AWESOME!

Damian Lillard Back to the Blazers Is AWESOME!

So, we got some major moves here in the NBA offseason. Damen Lillard, one of the best point guards in the NBA, who was stretched and waved by the Milwaukee Bucks a couple weeks ago so they can create the cap space to go out and get Miles Turner, just signed with his new team. We thought he could end up going for a ring before he retires. And while he rehabs from this Achilles tear, we thought he could end up on a team like the Boston Celtics or the Golden State Warriors, maybe the LA Lakers. But no, maybe the best storybook option happens. Damen Lillard is going to reunite with the Portland Trailblazers on a three-year deal worth $42 million. And the deal is going to give him a player option in 2028 and a no trade clause in this deal as well. So Damen Lillard could end up retiring with the Portland Trailblazers. He will have a 2026 set salary of $70 million between his Portland and Milwaukee deals and a salary of $141 million over the next two years ahead of an opt out in 2027. But this is really cool. Damen Lord got drafted by the Portland Trailblazers in 2012 where he spent all of his career up until the 2023 offseason with Portland. Obviously, he never had a chance to go to the NBA finals. They did make it to the conference finals in the 2019 season, but got swept by a Golden State Warriors team that didn’t even have Kevin Durant at the time. But Dame is going to be a Hall of Famer one day given that he scored 25 points a night, seven assists, four rebounds on 44 37 90 splits in his 11 years in Portland. That team looked so much different when he got drafted in 2012 to when he got traded in 2023. Obviously, the grass was not greener in Milwaukee. He ended up appearing in 131 games for the Bucks across two seasons where he averaged 24 and a half points. He averaged four and a half rebounds, seven assists, shot 43% from the field, 36% from three, and 92% from the free throw line. And honestly, it would be cool to see Damen Lillard compete for an NBA title before he retires. There’s a good chance he’s not going to play at all in the 2026 season, but he gets a chance to return to the franchise that drafted him and his family and kids are over there in Portland as well. He came out a bunch of times in Milwaukee saying how much he missed this family. And now he has a chance to go back and play for the franchise that loves him so much that maybe those fans thought they would never see Damen Millard in the black and red ever again. And now he’s joining a core of Drew Holiday, Tumani Kamara, Denny of Dia, Shaden Sharp, Scoot Henderson, Donovan Klingan, Yang Hansen. And this could be a fun team for the Blazers going forward. It is wild that Portland traded away Damen Lillard for Drew Holiday, Tumani Kamara, and Assets in 2023. Then Portland traded Drew Holiday to Boston for Robert Williams, Malcolm Brogden, and Draft Capital. And now the Portland Trailblazers have Damen Willard and Drew Holiday. At the end of the day, they still have Robert Williams. They got Tummani Kamar from that Ysef Nerk, DeAndre Aiden trade. And they have a 2029 firstrounder from the Bucks and two swap. So it is kind of crazy how much maybe Portland did win this trade. Now I always thought they didn’t really get the best return for Damen Lillard. Maybe they traded him a year too late and their best asset they got back was Tummani Kamara because I don’t think anybody was head over heels about Robert Williams long-term or Malcolm Brogden or any of those pieces that went back to Portland and now they have Damen Lillard which is really cool. I hope he doesn’t really block Scoot Henderson’s development too much. But I think Dame is more so going to be a veteran for this group and he’s going to be somebody that’s been in and out of some really good Portland Trailblazers teams and some bad Portland Trailblazers teams but could just be a good mentor for the young core going forward. He’s already getting paid a lot of money from the Milwaukee Bucks on a year-over-year basis. So, this isn’t really going to handicap the Portland Trailblazers at all. It’s not like they had to max out Damen Lillard and they get him for at least one year guaranteed of a healthy game because he’s most likely not going to play, like I said, in the 2026 season. But in 2027, he’s going to be healthy and then he’s got that player option for 2028. And I’m sure a lot of teams are upset that they couldn’t get Damen Lillard. Yeah, he could have ended up on the Boston Celtics to paired up with Jason Tatum who was also rehabbing from that Achilles tear and paired up with Jaylen Brown and Derek White and Peyton Pritchard over there in Boston. And if he went to the Eastern Conference, he would definitely have the best chance at a ring. I don’t think Dame now is going to get a ring before he retires. I know Portland is on a great track right now and they’ve been one of the better teams developing as of late. They were one of the best teams in the second half as well. But I just don’t think in the Western Conference that has Victor Wimbeyama on the rise, the Mavericks who just got Cooper Flag, Luca Donic, Nicole Joic, the reigning NBA champion, OKC Thunder, you have the Houston Rockets who headed Kevin Durant this offseason. It’s going to be tough for Portland to compete at least in the next year and a half without Damen Lillard. But once they get Dame, you know what? They could be a frisky team next year. here. The Trailblazers do have a deep roster and I’m really excited to watch them now, especially when Damen Lillard comes back because that first home game that Lillard is going to suit up for the Portland Trailblazers, I’m just going to have chills because of what he meant to that city. And he’s been through some really bad teams. Like I said, they were 27 and 55 in 2022, 33 and 49 in 2023. And they’ve won a total of 57 games, but they also have 107 losses in the two years without Damen Lillard. So maybe, yeah, Portland, after all, did win the Damen Lard trade. I know Milwaukee gave up all that they did. They gave up Drew Holidayiday, who helped Boston win a title in 2024. They gave up a decent amount of draft capital to get Dame to not even win a playoff series, and now Dame is just returning to the team that they got him from a few years ago. I’d love to know your guys’ thoughts in the comments below. What do you think about this pickup for the Portland Trailblazers? Do you think it’s going to have that much of an NBA on the floor aspect and impact? Or do you think it’s going to be something that’s more off the floor that’s just going to be a storybook ending for Damen Millard’s career for somebody that could go down as the best Portland Trailblazer of all time? Cuz he can now go headto-head with Clyde Drexler and win shares are going to play a decent amount of years up against each other. Clyde Drexler 12 years in Portland. Damen Lord, like I said in the beginning of the video, has spent 11 years in Portland. So I think this may solidify Dame as he retires in Portland as the best trailblazer of all time. time. And I do think this is the best storyline of the offseason. I just love a homecoming and I didn’t really think Dame was going to return to Portland. Like I said, maybe I thought he was going to go to the Boston Celtics. Maybe I thought he was going to sign with the Minnesota Timberwolves and team up with Anthony Edwards. Maybe he was going to go to Houston and kind of ring chase with Kevin Durant and try to compete for a title with the Houston Rockets. Or maybe he can go to Denver and play with Nicole Joic or go to one of the LA teams or go home to the Bay Area of Golden State. But no, he chose the Portland Trailblazers. It’s also kind of funny too because they were going to draft Scoot Henderson with the third overall pick in the 2023 draft in which they did, but Dame didn’t really like playing with Scoot Henderson and then they ended up trading him later that off seasonason. And now is Dame just going to start over Scoot in a year from now or can they coexist? I think it’s going to be something really cool to watch. But we know that Dame is still such a good movement shooter and he’s somebody that maybe won’t be the best defender in the world when he comes back from the Achilles tear. So if you have him out there with Donovan Klingan, Tummani Kamara, Drew Holiday, they can help him out on the defensive end of the floor as he gets ramped up and worked up back to 100% to what we saw him pretty much in the middle of the 2025 season. Because when you talk about like the best moves this offseason, you probably say the Houston Rockets getting Kevin Durant’s got to be up there. The Dallas Mavericks drafting, Cooper Flag, maybe it’s the Orlando Magic trading for Desmond Bane. But like I said, I I do think this is the best story line from the 2025 offseason. I just think this is a really cool reunion. something we don’t really see too often. Like we saw Dwayne Wade retire with the Miami Heat and that was really cool. I didn’t think we were going to ever head down this road again. And as I mentioned before, maybe the grass isn’t always greener. So maybe Devin Booker is looking at this situation that is going on in Phoenix and he’s like, you know what, I this is my home. I may go down as one of the greatest sons of all time. Let me stay here. Let me not try to get traded at one point and let me go through the es and flows of a rebuild, a retool, and a contending team that he’s going through right now. Maybe Giannis is going to look at this as well and be like, you know what, I have something really good here in Milwaukee. I want a title in 2021. Things could be okay at the end of the tunnel because back in 2023, the future didn’t look bright in Portland and yet they get the benefit of getting Dame back for basically the mid-level exception and getting all the assets they got for Damen Lillard. But I just think it is really cool when a player can just stay with a team for his whole career. It’s really cool to see what’s going on with Steph Curry in Golden State. We’re probably going to see that with Nicole Joic in Denver and we’ll see what ends up happening here with Damen Lord in Portland. Let me know in the comments what you guys think about this reunion. Did it catch you by surprise? Do you think it’s something that is one of the best storylines of the offseason? Or do you think this can actually give a major impact for the Blazers going forward for their young core and maybe competing for a title in 2027? Let me know down below in the comments. Hit the like if you guys did enjoy the video and I’ll catch you all in the next one. Peace. [Music]

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