Damian Lillard and the Milwaukee Bucks were a first-round exit this year. As he watches from the sidelines, Lillard admits that it’s a tough pill to swallow knowing one of either Anthony Edwards, Jayson Tatum, Luka Doncic, or Anthony Edwards will win their first championship this season while he remains ringless at 33 years old.
“Whenever you get to the playoffs and get eliminated early, it’s always tough to continue to watch. In the first round, everybody’s excited, and then as it continues to go it puts attention on fewer and fewer teams,” said Lillard. “So just looking at it now there’s four teams left and somebody’s gonna win their first championship this season… so that’s hard to be on the outside looking in.”
"Somebody gonna win their first one so that's always hard to be on the outside looking in." @Dame_Lillard joins the WCF Altcast with @mrvincecarter15, @bomani_jones, @jordancornette and @ChrisBHaynes on TruTV pic.twitter.com/M66vmUTiXv
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) May 23, 2024
The Bucks didn’t come into the playoffs on a high note. As they were adjusting to the new coaching scheme of Doc Rivers, injuries and setbacks plagued the Bucks all season long and it all boiled over in the post-season against the Indiana Pacers. While the Bucks put up an admirable fight, they didn’t have enough without Giannis Antetokounmpo to keep their season alive.
For Lillard, this season was particularly difficult on both a professional and a personal level. His stats saw a decline across the board in his debut season with the Bucks, going from 32.2 points per game and 7.3 assists to 24.3 points and 7.0 assists per game. Lillard shot just 42% for the season, including just 35% from beyond the arc. Through it all, he was dealing with a fierce divorce that put his young twin children right in the middle of a parental dispute.
Needless to say, it was a season from hell for Damian Lillard and now he’s got to sit back and watch as a young and unproven squad makes history to win their first-ever championship.
The Milwaukee Bucks Are Not Done Yet
There’s no question that the Milwaukee Bucks were one of the NBA’s most disappointing teams this season. besides winning just 49 games, Giannis and Lillard never looked completely comfortable together and experts agreed that they were not utilizing each other’s strengths.
The climax of the season was when the Bucks fired head coach Adrian Griffin despite being second in the East. At the time, there was concern about the level of buy-in in the locker room and Griffin’s coaching pedigree came into question when people saw Giannis drawing up his own plays.
With Griffin gone and replaced with Doc, the Bucks were expected to rise up and meet their potential. Instead, it was only more of the same as the team continued to struggle on the court.
This summer, with both Giannis and Lillard locked in, the only path to improvement is via the trade market and there are a number of targets that make sense. Players like Austin Reaves, DeMar DeRozan, or Gordon Hayward could give the Bucks some much-needed depth and an offensive punch that could take some scoring pressure off the superstar duo.
Regardless of how it plays out this July, the Bucks have invested too much into this to give up now. With two of the best players in the world still in their uniform, the Bucks fully believe in their chances to win and it might not take long before the pieces come together.
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