The short Damian Lillard free agency saga ended late Thursday when the nine-time All-Star signed a three-year, $42 million contract with his old team, the Portland Trail Blazers.
Lillard returns to the team that he spent the first 11 seasons of his career with. He averaged 25.2 points and 6.7 assists per game in that span before being trading to the Milwaukee Bucks, where he would spend the next seasons before being surprisingly waived earlier this offseason.
Lillard will spend most, if not all of the 2025-26 rehabbing from a torn achilles suffered in the first round of this past season’s playoffs.
The Boston Celtics were one of the teams interested in Lillard before he signed with Portland. ESPN’s Shams Charania detailed on SportsCenter what the Celtics’ offer for Lillard was.
“Boston, Minnesota — dozens of other teams — had minimum and mid-level exception offers out to Damian Lillard in the last several weeks,” Charania said. “Next year, Damian Lillard will make $70 million between his Bucks and Blazers salaries. In the next two years, he’ll be at $140 million combined in salaries.”
Boston will now divert their attention elsewhere after missing out on Lillard. Despite not having him this season, the idea of having Lillard, and Jayson Tatum together in 2026-27 would have been fun for Celtics fans to think about.
