Associated Press

Damian Lillard says he can help the Bucks on defense while embracing championship expectations

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Damian Lillard understands he has a reputation for being an elite offensive player but not a particularly strong defender.

Now that he’s on a new team, the seven-time all-NBA selection looks forward to changing that perception.

Lillard began training camp with Milwaukee on Tuesday, a week after the Bucks acquired him from the Portland Trail Blazers to team up with two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo. One of the players the Bucks gave up was Jrue Holiday, a five-time All-Defensive Team selection who landed with the Boston Celtics in a separate trade.

Lillard acknowledges he isn’t as good a defender as the guy he’s replacing.

“I’m not going to come in here and be Jrue Holiday,” Lillard said Monday during the Bucks’ media day. “My personal opinion, I think he’s the best defender on the perimeter.”

But Lillard believes he can help the Bucks continue to play solid defense.

“At the very least, on that end of the floor, I’m going to compete,” he said.

“The people that I play against will tell you, I ain’t a pushover, you know what I’m saying?” Lillard continued. “I’ve also had a lot of responsibility on the offensive end for my entire career. I think playing with the kind of players I’ll be playing with here, it will also give me an opportunity to show myself much better on the defensive end of the floor.”

The Bucks believe Lillard’s extraordinary skills on offense will make up for whatever they might sacrifice on defense.

Lillard ranks 11th in NBA history in career scoring average (25.2 points per game) and sixth in 3-pointers (2,387). Although he played just 29 games due to an abdominal injury in 2021-22 and was limited to 58 games by a calf strain last season, Lillard has continued to perform at an all-NBA level when healthy.

The Bucks are counting on Lillard to help them bounce back from last season’s stunning first-round playoff loss to Miami and win a second title in four years.

“I'm not asking him to be anything except Damian Lillard," new Bucks coach Adrian Griffin said. "And that's plenty. He's excelled in pick-and-rolls. He's excelled at making big shots and helping his team win, and we need every bit of him. We don't need him to be anything more or less than what he's done the last 11 years of his career.”

Lillard welcomes those expectations.

During his 11 seasons with Portland, Lillard advanced beyond the second round of the playoffs just once, when the Blazers reached the Western Conference finals in 2019. He requested a trade to play for a contender.

“In my career, my life, I’ve never been part of any situation that (I) was not an underdog,” Lillard said. “From my AAU program, I played in my neighborhood AAU program. I went to Weber State. I get drafted to Portland. I’ve done a lot more overachieving in my career than like living up to what was expected. So I’m excited about that. I think once again, at my age and at this stage of my career, I think it came at the perfect time as I prepare for a situation like this.”

Lillard says he’s thrilled about the opportunity to play alongside Antetokounmpo, even though he had pushed for a trade to Miami. The feeling is mutual.

“I feel like we are just the same people, just different size,” Antetokounmpo said. “He plays with a chip on his shoulder. He plays to win. He’s built from the same cloth. How can I say it, whenever I saw him, I admired his game. I loved how he plays the game.”

Both players understand there’s plenty of work to do as Lillard adapts to his new teammates and learns how to play alongside Antetokounmpo. The superstars made that point clear while speaking to each other after the trade.

“It’s an attractive thing, me and him playing together, the kind of team that we have," Lillard said. "But the work has to get done. I think that’s one thing that we’re extremely like-minded about, that I’ve learned in the last couple of days, is like when it comes to having some success, I’m a person that wants to get in the mud and make sure that I’m doing the things that are going to earn us that right, to have that type of success. And he is, too.”

That’s only one of many reasons Lillard feels good about his new situation.

Lillard talked this week about how much he appreciated arriving in Milwaukee on Saturday to a welcoming crowd that Bucks officials estimated at 5,000 people. The sunny weather made an equally strong impression.

“Every time I’ve been to Milwaukee over the course of my career, I just stay in the hotel all the time because it’s like snowing or something like that,” Lillard said. “Seeing the sun out, being by the water and stuff like that, it almost made me smile a little bit, like, ‘Man, it’s going to be all right.’”

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by Associated Press

Antetokounmpo praises Lillard acquisition and says he wants to be a Buck 'as long as we're winning'

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Giannis Antetokounmpo praised the Milwaukee Bucks for showing a commitment to winning another championship by acquiring Damian Lillard but added that it still doesn’t make financial sense for him to sign a contract extension right now.

Antetokounmpo is eligible to sign a three-year extension totaling about $170 million, but he can make significantly more by waiting until next summer to do so. Antetokounmpo’s contract runs through the 2024-25 season, though he also has a player option for 2025-26.

“I said that it did not make sense to sign the contract right now because money’s not important – a lot of money is important. So I’m going to sign it next year,” Antetokounmpo said with a laugh. “But, no, at the end of the day, again, it doesn’t make sense. It does not make sense for me to sign it right now. I’ve got to always look at what’s best for me and my family, for my situation.

“But at the end of the day, I want to be a Milwaukee Buck for the rest of my career, as long as we are winning. It’s as simple as that.”

Antetokounmpo had told The New York Times this summer that he wanted to make sure the Bucks were committed to winning another championship before deciding whether to sign his extension.

The Bucks have since added Lillard as part of a three-team trade in which they gave up two-time All-Star Jrue Holiday, guard Grayson Allen and plenty of draft capital. In Lillard and Antetokounmpo, the Bucks now have two of the 75 players selected on the NBA’s 75th anniversary team.

“Definitely I feel like the team has shown they’re committed to winning a championship,” Antetokounmpo said. “So I’m happy.”

So is Lillard, who had requested a trade from the Portland Trail Blazers because of his interest in competing for a title.

“I don’t think it’s a secret how much I want to win,” Lillard said. “That’s how we got here today. They want to win equally as bad as I do. I couldn’t be more excited. I couldn’t be more thankful for this opportunity, to be part of this organization, to play alongside the best player in the league.”

Milwaukee wasn’t Lillard’s expected destination. Aaron Goodwin, the seven-time all-NBA player’s agent, had said at the time of the trade request that Lillard wanted to go to Miami.

Lillard and Miami center Bam Adebayo are friends — they were teammates on the U.S. Olympic team that won gold in Tokyo in 2021 — and spoke often before the trade of what it would be like to be paired in Miami.

They spoke after the trade as well, and Adebayo said Lillard still got most of what he wanted.

“We talked about it,” Adebayo said. “Obviously, he had a different destination in mind. He got the opportunity to get what he wanted which was, one, to leave and two, win. So, I feel like his boxes still got checked.”

Lillard said the prospect of playing in Milwaukee started becoming realistic “maybe two weeks ago,” though he had expressed his interest in playing alongside Antetokounmpo long before then. When Lillard was asked on Twitter in May 2022 to pick one current player he’d want to help him reach the playoffs, he selected Antetokounmpo.

“Playing with somebody like Giannis, the kind of attention that he’s going to get is only going to make the game easier and more simple for me,” Lillard said. “I think because of the way I impose myself when I do play and how I attack games, he’s going to have the opportunity that I don’t think he’s had as well.”

The Lillard trade capped a busy offseason in which the Bucks also fired coach Mike Budenholzer and replaced him with Adrian Griffin. Budenholzer coached Milwaukee to its first NBA title in half a century in 2021 but got dismissed after the top-seeded Bucks lost to Miami in the first round of the playoffs.

These moves come with risk.

Lillard played just 29 games in 2021-22 due to an abdominal injury and was limited to 58 games last season by a calf strain. Antetokounmpo and three-time All-Star forward Khris Middleton had offseason knee surgeries, and Middleton played just 33 games last season.

The Bucks also don’t have control of any of their first-round draft picks until 2031. They’ve traded their first-round picks in 2025, 2027 and 2029 and have agreed to pick swaps in 2024, 2026, 2028 and 2030.

Even so, Bucks co-owner Wes Edens feels like “we’re in the best position we’ve ever been at this point in a season.”

“I think that people tend to underestimate the risk of doing nothing versus the risk of doing something,” Edens said.

The Bucks did plenty the last few months. Antetokounmpo took notice, even though he’s not signing an extension just yet.

“It doesn’t make sense for me to sign this year,” the two-time MVP said. “Hopefully I can have the offer, I can have a good season and the team have a good season and we win a championship and everybody’s happy and everybody is being taken are of next year and the offer that has been on the table, hopefully the offer is there on the table and maybe I can take it.”

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AP Pro Basketball Writer Tim Reynolds contributed to this report.

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by Associated Press