{"id":26227,"date":"2025-06-30T04:27:07","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T04:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/26227\/"},"modified":"2025-06-30T04:27:07","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T04:27:07","slug":"deandre-ayton-finalizing-contract-buyout-with-portland-trail-blazers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/26227\/","title":{"rendered":"Deandre Ayton Finalizing Contract Buyout With Portland Trail Blazers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"gpWaB0\">The Portland Trail Blazers are finalizing a contract buyout with center Deandre Ayton, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/1939514169964790164\" rel=\"nofollow\">ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania has reported.<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p id=\"vNMQa7\">This gives Ayton, a former No. 1 overall pick who went to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sbnation.com\/nba-finals\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA Finals<\/a> with the Suns, the chance to receive a fresh opportunity as the Trail Blazers build around their depth of young centers.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p id=\"8VFtZf\">Ayton, 26, had one year and $35.6 remaining on his contract with the Trail Blazers. He was set to hit unrestricted free agency next summer, but now he\u2019ll head to the free agency market a year early.<\/p>\n<p id=\"RfdyaW\">In the 2023 offseason, the former No. 1 overall pick was hailed as the centerpiece player acquired by Portland in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blazersedge.com\/2023\/10\/1\/23898279\/portland-trail-blazers-damian-lillard-jrue-holiay-trade-robert-williams-brogdon-boston-celtics-heat\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the three-team trade<\/a> between the Phoenix Suns and Milwaukee Bucks that ended Damian Lillard\u2019s legendary tenure in Rip City.<\/p>\n<p id=\"MSV7r0\">During his past two seasons in Portland, the 7-foot center averaged 15.7 points, 10.7 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 0.9 blocks per game through 95 appearances.<\/p>\n<p id=\"EpF4oZ\">The summer after acquiring Ayton, the Blazers drafted 7-foot-2 center Donovan Clingan with the No. 7 overall pick in 2024. Then this past week, Portland picked another rookie center by taking 7-foot-1 big man Yang Hansen with the No. 16 overall pick. The back-to-back first-round selection crowded the front-court rotation with five centers \u2014 Ayton, Clingan, Hansen, Robert Williams III and Duop Reath.<\/p>\n<p id=\"m08Hbj\">Ayton\u2019s buyout will now clear up some of that roster space and playing time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Portland Trail Blazers are finalizing a contract buyout with center Deandre Ayton, ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania has reported.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[23074,11091,11086,23076,12192,23073,11092,23075,204,23077,196,62,11085,11093,67,132,68,1917],"class_list":{"0":"post-26227","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ayton","9":"tag-blazer","10":"tag-blazers","11":"tag-buyout","12":"tag-contract","13":"tag-deandre","14":"tag-edge","15":"tag-finalizing","16":"tag-front-page","17":"tag-portland","18":"tag-s","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-trail","21":"tag-trail-blazers-news","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-with"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114770427485128410","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}