{"id":17424,"date":"2025-07-17T22:24:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T22:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/17424\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T22:24:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T22:24:07","slug":"sources-damian-lillard-reaches-deal-to-return-to-trail-blazers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/17424\/","title":{"rendered":"Sources – Damian Lillard reaches deal to return to Trail Blazers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nine-time NBA All-Star Damian Lillard<\/a> has agreed to a three-year, $42 million contract to return to the Portland Trail Blazers<\/a>, sources told ESPN on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Lillard’s deal is expected to include a player option in 2027-28 and a no-trade clause.<\/p>\n

Lillard and the Trail Blazers both deeply cared about the comeback in recent weeks — with multiple meetings among the Portland franchise icon, general manager Joe Cronin and head coach Chauncey Billups to bond together and move forward united on a new deal, sources said.<\/p>\n

The Milwaukee Bucks<\/a> waived Lillard, 35, earlier this month and stretched the remaining $113 million on his contract in order to sign free agent center Myles Turner<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Damian Lillard is finalizing a return to the Trail Blazers, the franchise with which he spent the first 11 seasons of his career.\u00a0Troy Wayrynen\/USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n

Lillard now will have a 2025-26 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. Blazers officials and Aaron Goodwin of Goodwin Sports Management are finalizing terms this week.<\/p>\n

Lillard tore his left Achilles in late April in Game 4 of the Bucks’ first-round playoff series with the Indiana Pacers<\/a> and underwent surgery in early May.<\/p>\n

Lillard will use the 2025-26 season to rehabilitate his injury, but a return to the franchise and Portland, where his family and children reside were of the ultimate importance, per sources. He also had multiple mid-level exception and minimum offers from NBA contenders, per sources.<\/p>\n

Portland traded Lillard to the Bucks for Jrue Holiday<\/a>, Toumani Camara<\/a>, and assets in 2023 and then swapped Holiday to the Boston Celtics<\/a> for Robert Williams III<\/a>, Malcolm Brogdon<\/a> and assets (one led to Deni Avdija).<\/p>\n

Now, the Blazers have both Lillard and Holiday (reacquired in a trade with the Celtics<\/a> this offseason), plus Avdija, Williams, Camara, a 2029 first-rounder and two Bucks pick swaps.<\/p>\n

Lillard spent 11 seasons with the Trail Blazers, making seven All-Star appearances and seven All-NBA teams. He led Portland to the playoffs eight times, including a Western Conference finals appearance in 2018-19. He ranks first in team history in points (19,376) and 3-pointers (2,387) and second in assists (5,151).<\/p>\n

Including the regular season and playoffs, Lillard has seven 55-point games with the Trail Blazers. No other player in the franchise’s history has any such games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nine-time NBA All-Star Damian Lillard has agreed to a three-year, $42 million contract to return to the Portland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-17424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}