{"id":71164,"date":"2025-07-17T23:35:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T23:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/71164\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T23:35:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T23:35:11","slug":"why-damian-lillard-couldnt-stay-away-from-portland-and-it-may-have-nothing-to-do-with-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/71164\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Damian Lillard couldn\u2019t stay away from Portland, and it may have nothing to do with basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"

Damian Lillard<\/a> is back with the Portland Trail Blazers<\/a>, the team where he spent the bulk of his storied NBA career<\/a>. After being waived by the Milwaukee Bucks<\/a> earlier this month, Lillard<\/a> has signed a three-year, $42 million deal with the Trail Blazers<\/a>, which includes a player option for the 2027\u201328 season and a no-trade clause.<\/p>\n

Shortly after news of his return broke, the 35-year-old guard posted a video on X that panned across the Trail Blazers\u2019 locker room. <\/p>\n

The video ended with a shot of his No. 0 jersey hanging in his old locker and closed with the message: \u201cTogether again.\u201d
Why Lillard chose to come back?<\/p>\n

Lillard\u2019s return is driven by more than just basketball. According to reports, a key reason behind his decision was to be closer to his family, who continue to live in Portland. <\/p>\n

\"ETLive Events
The father of three has remained deeply connected to the city even after his trade to Milwaukee in 2023.Despite a torn Achilles suffered during Game 4 of the Bucks\u2019 first-round playoff series against the Pacers, an injury that will likely sideline him for the entire 2025\u201326 season, Lillard was determined to make Portland his home once again.A career comes full circle<\/p>\n

Drafted sixth overall by the Blazers in 2012, Lillard quickly became the face of the franchise. Over 11 seasons in Portland, he earned seven All-Star selections and became the team\u2019s all-time leader in both points and three-pointers made.<\/p>\n

Though his stint with the Bucks was short-lived, Lillard still averaged an impressive 24.9 points per game last season, just slightly below his career average 25.1.<\/p>\n

Now, with his future set in the city that shaped him, where it all began.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Damian Lillard is back with the Portland Trail Blazers, the team where he spent the bulk of his…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":71165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[49774,11086,23229,49777,3130,1260,49775,3133,49776,62,23884,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-71164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball-news","9":"tag-blazers","10":"tag-damian-lillard","11":"tag-lillard","12":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-nba-career","15":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","16":"tag-return-to-portland","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-trail-blazers","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114871201059750324","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71164","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=71164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}