Bucks To Waive Damian Lillard, Stretch Remaining Salary

The Bucks are waiving injured point guard Damian Lillard and stretching the $112.6MM owed to him over the next two years across five seasons, reports ESPN’s Shams Charania (Twitter link).

The move will help create the cap room necessary in order for the Bucks to complete their four-year, $107MM deal with free agent center Myles Turner.

It’s a shocking development, but Milwaukee was expected to aggressive this offseason in its efforts to upgrade the roster and convince superstar forward Giannis Antetokounmpo that he can still contend for a championship with the Bucks. And Lillard, who sustained a torn Achilles during the first round of the playoffs this spring, wasn’t going to be able to contribute to a title chase in 2025/26, as he’ll almost certainly miss most or all of the season.

As we explain in our glossary entry, the stretch provision allows teams to spread out a player’s remaining guaranteed salary across twice the remaining years left on his contract, plus one. That means the Bucks will now carry cap hits of $22,516,603 for the next five seasons for Lillard, instead of paying him $54,126,450 in 2025/26 and $58,456,566 in ’26/27.

The move creates more than $30MM in extra spending flexibility for Milwaukee this season.

As Bobby Marks of ESPN notes (via Twitter), teams aren’t permitted to waive and stretch a player if the move would result in waived-and-stretched salary taking up more than 15% of a season’s cap. But 15% of this season’s cap works out to about $23.2MM, so Lillard’s figure sneaks in below that threshold.

This is the largest waive-and-stretch in NBA history, Marks adds (via Twitter).

A team that waives a player and stretches his salary isn’t permitted to sign him until after the original end date of his contract, so the Bucks wouldn’t be able to bring back Lillard this season or next season once he’s healthy.

Lillard, who will turn 35 this month, averaged 24.9 points, 7.1 assists, and 4.7 rebounds per game in 58 starts for the Bucks this season, posting a shooting line of .448/.376/.921. He missed time near the end of the season after being diagnosed with a blood clot in his calf. Although the star guard was able to return during the playoffs, he suited up in just three games before tearing his Achilles.

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