July 1, 2025 • 9 mins
Andrew talks about the Bucks letting go of Dame Lillard and NBA free agency
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
By saying that this was going to be unlike any
other free agency market, that things were going to be
happening very, very quickly, and then nothing really happened yesterday.
It was kind of a slow first day. Today, however,
things heated up. We had two major moves, one of
them being that Damian Lillard getting waived by the Milwaukee Bucks.
(00:24):
And this I think came to a surprise for a
lot of people. Now dame older dealing with a torn
achilles during the twenty twenty five playoffs. He's expected to
miss this entire season. But it did feel kind of
weird that Lillard, after averaging almost twenty five points per
game of the past two seasons and having a contract
(00:44):
over one hundred million dollars, that the Bucks would say,
you know what, We're okay, we're gonna sign off. We're
gonna write you off and goodbye, good luck type of thing.
This is a surprise for a guy who a couple
of years ago was considered the second best point guard
in the league, Steph Curry. This is a guy who,
coming off of the twenty nineteen playoffs, we thought might
(01:04):
be one of the best players on the planet. And
then he goes to Milwaukee, and things didn't really jive
the first year. He gets hurt in the year number two,
and now what we thought was going to be a
potential pairing up of Janison Dame did not work. And
it goes to show once again that when you try
to add ingredients to a recipe that was already working
(01:26):
it sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes you don't need the
triple chocolate chip cookie recipe. The mom AND's mom and
Grandma's chocolate chip cookie recipe was fine. You know, you
don't need to add a guy like Damian Lillard, or
at least the Bucks didn't. So they sign off on
him and they sent him on his way. The problem
then turns into Yannis going online and then tweeting that
(01:48):
he doesn't know what's going on, and then the reports
immediately rolling out from Chris Haynes saying that, hey, he's
not happy with the decision to sign to write off
Damian Lillard to essentially buy all intensive purposes kick him
to the curb. He wasn't happy about that, and it
makes me wonder one of two things is happening. Either
(02:09):
A the Milwaukee Bucks went to Yannis talk to Yannis.
Yannis told them, you need to make some moves to
get something done here, to try to put a championship
contending team around me. They said, okay, well that means
we have to buy out Lillard. Good luck, God bless
and now they end up with Miles Turner with some
of that extra cap money that they have, or option too,
(02:30):
the far less likely option in my mind, that the
Milwaukee Bucks, on their own, without talking to their greatest
player in franchise history, decided to write off Damian Liller's
contract and in turn piss him off. That doesn't make
sense to me that it doesn't make sense that the
Milwaukee Bucks would go around Giannis's back and get rid
(02:51):
of Lillard. It just it doesn't. So Yanna's coming online
and pretending to be the good guy brings up a
conversation I had earlier today with a coworker I had.
There's two different types of dudes, right. It's the kind
of guy who's a jerk, who knows he's a jerk,
who treats everybody like a jerk, but he at the
end of the day is he is what he is.
And then there's the type of guy who's a jerk
(03:12):
but then tries to play it off and be a
nice guy, you know, smiles to your face, stabs you
in the back.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Type of thing.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yanis going on Twitter and saying he doesn't know what's
going on is giving me the vibes of a guy
who wants everybody to like him. He wants everybody to
like him. He doesn't want anybody to hate him. He
wants everybody to be Kumbaya. That he's the face of
the franchise. He's mister Smiley's friendly guy, but he's a
killer like every other one of these superstars. That he
is going to excommunicate you if it means he has
(03:39):
a better shot at winning a title, that to me
is more likely. That, to me, is the more likely
situation that Yadis knew what was going on and said, yeah,
I'm okay with that. We give Lebron so much grief
legm oh. You know, he tries and sells players like
he is the owner of these teams that he is on,
and at forty one years old, he doesn't have that
(04:00):
power that he used to. But ten years ago, we
all agree he was making some of those major moves
in Miami and then his second stint in Cleveland, he
brought in his best friend, the guy who won championships
with in Miami, Dwayne Wade. Halfway through the season, he said, Dwayne, Buddy, listen,
it's not going to work here. You are a hindrance
to my chance to bring home another championship. Where do
(04:23):
you want to go? And then Dwayne Wade ends up
going back from Cleveland to Miami. People forget about this.
But if you go to the right jersey party in college,
you'll see a Dwayn Wade Cleveland Cavaliers jersey. You go
to a ross or a best or a ross or
a Goodwill, you'll see a Dwayne Wade Cavis jersey. There's
disgusting to look at, but like Lebron is a cutthrow guy.
(04:45):
He's trying to win championships. He's going to do everything
he can. It doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't like you.
He might like you off the court, but he's doing
everything he can to win a title. And we know
that about Lebron. Giannis is this other camp he's he
wants to be buddy. He wants to make it seem
like everybody likes him. Oh, I would never get rid
of Damian Lillard. No man own up to it own
(05:08):
up that you want to go win a championship. In fact,
I think we'll like you a little bit more. But
I'll tell you everybody's pretending that Lillard's a big loser
in this situation. I look at him as the ultimate winner.
I get a hundred million dollars, I bought out of
my contract. I get to rehab this injury. I don't
have to worry about rushing back. I don't have to
worry about the Bucks being a fringe bubble team rushing
(05:31):
back and then maybe re injuring my leg. I don't
have to worry about any of that. Now I can
sit back, I can relax, dich kind of, I can
work out. I can rehab, get back to where I
need to be, and then I can go sign with
the title contender. Because Lillard is at the point of
his career where he's just chasing rings, he wants to
go down with a ring so he doesn't get lumped
in with guys like John Stockton, Karl Alone, Charles Barkley.
(05:54):
I get it. I'm not against that idea. Go get
your ring, go try to go, and he's gonna sign
for a mid level exception at this point, he's gonna
come off an Achilles injury, sign a cheap deal with
a title contending team, probably be a backup point guard,
be a leader in the locker room, and then you're good.
You can let him move on to his next deal.
Maybe he can go get another deal. With the medicine
(06:16):
we have with modern medicine, Damian Lillard might get another contract.
It's possible. But he doesn't have to worry to Achilles.
He's fine.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Achilles injuries aren't as bad as they used to be
if you really look at it, like compared to five
to ten years ago, it's like, oh, well, here goes
a season and a half, you know, a year and
a half. But no, I think what you're saying is
completely true. And I did look up top five landing
spots for a Dame, and your team's on here. I'm
not gonna say which one or which spot they're on,
(06:46):
but they are on there. I can rattle off the
top five and let me know what you think. Let's
hear it, all right, So five Boston Celtics not bad.
I can see it going there, Miami or Orlando. I
don't think to go to Orlando. Here, here's where your
team comes into San Antonio Spurs and number one Portland Trailblazers.
(07:06):
But of course I want to back when the Warriors
come home, Dame just ride out on the sun set
with the Warriors. But yeah, I can see him going
to your Spurs out of all of those teams.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
You're saying come home. For those of you that don't know,
Dame is from Oakland, it's not that he's going back
to the Warriors. He's going back home to Oakland. So
I like that idea. Go back to San Francisco, the
Bay Area. I wouldn't mind that, and I don't think
Steph Curry would mind that either. I think that that
makes them a little bit better. It does make them
a little bit older though too. The Spurs are in
a different category to me, Cole because they're a team
(07:39):
that is very guard loaded. They went and got Dylan Harper,
they have the Aaron Fox, Steph Castle, dev Miselle. They
have a lot of guards. So if Lillard decides to
sign a mid level exception to come play next to
wimben Yama, it's gonna be in a bench roll, a
reduced role. And I don't know if the Spurs need
another point guard. That is, if they have the roster
as curly set, maybe they make some moves and they
(08:01):
do need an extra point guard, but at this point,
I don't know if that fit makes as much sense.
The Portland one, though, makes me discussed, turns my stomach
because if you go back to Portland, you're essentially deciding
that you were going to become the elder Statesman and
retire without a rank at that point, that's what you
were doing if you go back to Portland. I understand it,
I get it, but it's almost like the night that
(08:22):
goes out to vanquish the dragon and comes back with
the scolded armor cold. You know, he doesn't come back
to a hero's welcome. No, not at all. I'm looking
at here for the Boston Celtics. Let's see, the Celtics
have a high salary cap with an estimated luxury attacks
of two hundred and thirty eight million, which means they
can only afford a veteran's minimum contract. If he does
(08:44):
agree to the deal, he'll come back from injury at
a start of twenty twenty six. But also I forgot
Jason Tatum also out with an achilles injury, So I
mean you got two players coming back from an achilles
injury in twenty twenty six. I mean, I wouldn't go
for it, but those are the top right now for Dame.
If you wanted to spin it, you got another guy
(09:05):
who's rehabbing an achilles injury with Tatum. You know, it's
one of those things where you can all, right, hey,
he's rehabbing, Dame's rehabbing. Maybe they can work out together
and make things easier. You did mention something though, that
I have to point out that I think is ironic.
You said that Achilles injuries are not as serious as
they once were. The Achilles injury is the new ACL injury.
(09:26):
Huh Right. Remember acls were stapping left and right and
it was career ending, and now acls aren't that big
of a deal. Achilles injuries are the new ACL injuries
of the NBA. Yeah, there you go, nice little comparison.
We got there, all right. When we come back Inconceivable, Inconceivable,
we have some of the top stories of the day
for you next as well. All coming up on Sports
(09:47):
Radio AM thirteen hundred Zone
By saying that this was going to be unlike any
other free agency market, that things were going to be
happening very, very quickly, and then nothing really happened yesterday.
It was kind of a slow first day. Today, however,
things heated up. We had two major moves, one of
them being that Damian Lillard getting waived by the Milwaukee Bucks.
(00:24):
And this I think came to a surprise for a
lot of people. Now dame older dealing with a torn
achilles during the twenty twenty five playoffs. He's expected to
miss this entire season. But it did feel kind of
weird that Lillard, after averaging almost twenty five points per
game of the past two seasons and having a contract
(00:44):
over one hundred million dollars, that the Bucks would say,
you know what, We're okay, we're gonna sign off. We're
gonna write you off and goodbye, good luck type of thing.
This is a surprise for a guy who a couple
of years ago was considered the second best point guard
in the league, Steph Curry. This is a guy who,
coming off of the twenty nineteen playoffs, we thought might
(01:04):
be one of the best players on the planet. And
then he goes to Milwaukee, and things didn't really jive
the first year. He gets hurt in the year number two,
and now what we thought was going to be a
potential pairing up of Janison Dame did not work. And
it goes to show once again that when you try
to add ingredients to a recipe that was already working
(01:26):
it sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes you don't need the
triple chocolate chip cookie recipe. The mom AND's mom and
Grandma's chocolate chip cookie recipe was fine. You know, you
don't need to add a guy like Damian Lillard, or
at least the Bucks didn't. So they sign off on
him and they sent him on his way. The problem
then turns into Yannis going online and then tweeting that
(01:48):
he doesn't know what's going on, and then the reports
immediately rolling out from Chris Haynes saying that, hey, he's
not happy with the decision to sign to write off
Damian Lillard to essentially buy all intensive purposes kick him
to the curb. He wasn't happy about that, and it
makes me wonder one of two things is happening. Either
(02:09):
A the Milwaukee Bucks went to Yannis talk to Yannis.
Yannis told them, you need to make some moves to
get something done here, to try to put a championship
contending team around me. They said, okay, well that means
we have to buy out Lillard. Good luck, God bless
and now they end up with Miles Turner with some
of that extra cap money that they have, or option too,
(02:30):
the far less likely option in my mind, that the
Milwaukee Bucks, on their own, without talking to their greatest
player in franchise history, decided to write off Damian Liller's
contract and in turn piss him off. That doesn't make
sense to me that it doesn't make sense that the
Milwaukee Bucks would go around Giannis's back and get rid
(02:51):
of Lillard. It just it doesn't. So Yanna's coming online
and pretending to be the good guy brings up a
conversation I had earlier today with a coworker I had.
There's two different types of dudes, right. It's the kind
of guy who's a jerk, who knows he's a jerk,
who treats everybody like a jerk, but he at the
end of the day is he is what he is.
And then there's the type of guy who's a jerk
(03:12):
but then tries to play it off and be a
nice guy, you know, smiles to your face, stabs you
in the back.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Type of thing.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yanis going on Twitter and saying he doesn't know what's
going on is giving me the vibes of a guy
who wants everybody to like him. He wants everybody to
like him. He doesn't want anybody to hate him. He
wants everybody to be Kumbaya. That he's the face of
the franchise. He's mister Smiley's friendly guy, but he's a
killer like every other one of these superstars. That he
is going to excommunicate you if it means he has
(03:39):
a better shot at winning a title, that to me
is more likely. That, to me, is the more likely
situation that Yadis knew what was going on and said, yeah,
I'm okay with that. We give Lebron so much grief
legm oh. You know, he tries and sells players like
he is the owner of these teams that he is on,
and at forty one years old, he doesn't have that
(04:00):
power that he used to. But ten years ago, we
all agree he was making some of those major moves
in Miami and then his second stint in Cleveland, he
brought in his best friend, the guy who won championships
with in Miami, Dwayne Wade. Halfway through the season, he said, Dwayne, Buddy, listen,
it's not going to work here. You are a hindrance
to my chance to bring home another championship. Where do
(04:23):
you want to go? And then Dwayne Wade ends up
going back from Cleveland to Miami. People forget about this.
But if you go to the right jersey party in college,
you'll see a Dwayn Wade Cleveland Cavaliers jersey. You go
to a ross or a best or a ross or
a Goodwill, you'll see a Dwayne Wade Cavis jersey. There's
disgusting to look at, but like Lebron is a cutthrow guy.
(04:45):
He's trying to win championships. He's going to do everything
he can. It doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't like you.
He might like you off the court, but he's doing
everything he can to win a title. And we know
that about Lebron. Giannis is this other camp he's he
wants to be buddy. He wants to make it seem
like everybody likes him. Oh, I would never get rid
of Damian Lillard. No man own up to it own
(05:08):
up that you want to go win a championship. In fact,
I think we'll like you a little bit more. But
I'll tell you everybody's pretending that Lillard's a big loser
in this situation. I look at him as the ultimate winner.
I get a hundred million dollars, I bought out of
my contract. I get to rehab this injury. I don't
have to worry about rushing back. I don't have to
worry about the Bucks being a fringe bubble team rushing
(05:31):
back and then maybe re injuring my leg. I don't
have to worry about any of that. Now I can
sit back, I can relax, dich kind of, I can
work out. I can rehab, get back to where I
need to be, and then I can go sign with
the title contender. Because Lillard is at the point of
his career where he's just chasing rings, he wants to
go down with a ring so he doesn't get lumped
in with guys like John Stockton, Karl Alone, Charles Barkley.
(05:54):
I get it. I'm not against that idea. Go get
your ring, go try to go, and he's gonna sign
for a mid level exception at this point, he's gonna
come off an Achilles injury, sign a cheap deal with
a title contending team, probably be a backup point guard,
be a leader in the locker room, and then you're good.
You can let him move on to his next deal.
Maybe he can go get another deal. With the medicine
(06:16):
we have with modern medicine, Damian Lillard might get another contract.
It's possible. But he doesn't have to worry to Achilles.
He's fine.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Achilles injuries aren't as bad as they used to be
if you really look at it, like compared to five
to ten years ago, it's like, oh, well, here goes
a season and a half, you know, a year and
a half. But no, I think what you're saying is
completely true. And I did look up top five landing
spots for a Dame, and your team's on here. I'm
not gonna say which one or which spot they're on,
(06:46):
but they are on there. I can rattle off the
top five and let me know what you think. Let's
hear it, all right, So five Boston Celtics not bad.
I can see it going there, Miami or Orlando. I
don't think to go to Orlando. Here, here's where your
team comes into San Antonio Spurs and number one Portland Trailblazers.
(07:06):
But of course I want to back when the Warriors
come home, Dame just ride out on the sun set
with the Warriors. But yeah, I can see him going
to your Spurs out of all of those teams.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
You're saying come home. For those of you that don't know,
Dame is from Oakland, it's not that he's going back
to the Warriors. He's going back home to Oakland. So
I like that idea. Go back to San Francisco, the
Bay Area. I wouldn't mind that, and I don't think
Steph Curry would mind that either. I think that that
makes them a little bit better. It does make them
a little bit older though too. The Spurs are in
a different category to me, Cole because they're a team
(07:39):
that is very guard loaded. They went and got Dylan Harper,
they have the Aaron Fox, Steph Castle, dev Miselle. They
have a lot of guards. So if Lillard decides to
sign a mid level exception to come play next to
wimben Yama, it's gonna be in a bench roll, a
reduced role. And I don't know if the Spurs need
another point guard. That is, if they have the roster
as curly set, maybe they make some moves and they
(08:01):
do need an extra point guard, but at this point,
I don't know if that fit makes as much sense.
The Portland one, though, makes me discussed, turns my stomach
because if you go back to Portland, you're essentially deciding
that you were going to become the elder Statesman and
retire without a rank at that point, that's what you
were doing if you go back to Portland. I understand it,
I get it, but it's almost like the night that
(08:22):
goes out to vanquish the dragon and comes back with
the scolded armor cold. You know, he doesn't come back
to a hero's welcome. No, not at all. I'm looking
at here for the Boston Celtics. Let's see, the Celtics
have a high salary cap with an estimated luxury attacks
of two hundred and thirty eight million, which means they
can only afford a veteran's minimum contract. If he does
(08:44):
agree to the deal, he'll come back from injury at
a start of twenty twenty six. But also I forgot
Jason Tatum also out with an achilles injury, So I
mean you got two players coming back from an achilles
injury in twenty twenty six. I mean, I wouldn't go
for it, but those are the top right now for Dame.
If you wanted to spin it, you got another guy
(09:05):
who's rehabbing an achilles injury with Tatum. You know, it's
one of those things where you can all, right, hey,
he's rehabbing, Dame's rehabbing. Maybe they can work out together
and make things easier. You did mention something though, that
I have to point out that I think is ironic.
You said that Achilles injuries are not as serious as
they once were. The Achilles injury is the new ACL injury.
(09:26):
Huh Right. Remember acls were stapping left and right and
it was career ending, and now acls aren't that big
of a deal. Achilles injuries are the new ACL injuries
of the NBA. Yeah, there you go, nice little comparison.
We got there, all right. When we come back Inconceivable, Inconceivable,
we have some of the top stories of the day
for you next as well. All coming up on Sports
(09:47):
Radio AM thirteen hundred Zone
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