Ultimately, the Heat weren’t able to land the All-Star, as the Milwaukee Bucks completed a trade for him instead.
But his first season with Milwaukee was mostly forgettable, and now, one NBA insider seems to think that the Heat could revisit their pursuit of Lillard if the Bucks struggle.
By his standards, Lillard wasn’t very efficient in his first season with the Bucks. He did average 24.3 points per game, but he shot just 42.4 percent from the field and 35.4 percent from deep.
When he was available in the playoffs, he found his stroke from 3-point range, averaging 31.3 points per game on 42.0 percent shooting from the field and 41.7 percent shooting from beyond the arc, but it wasn’t enough for the injury-riddled Bucks to survive the Indiana Pacers in the first round.
Lillard and teammate Giannis Antetokounmpo will look to get on the same page this coming season and return the Bucks to championship contention. Lillard is chasing his first NBA title, while Antetokounmpo is looking for his second.
When Milwaukee struck its deal for Lillard, many fans liked the team’s chances in the Eastern Conference going into the 2023-24 season, but the Lillard-Antetokounmpo duo didn’t quite live up to the hype.
Sometimes, it takes a season or two for a pairing to work as planned. The Minnesota Timberwolves, for example, had many fans thinking they made a disastrous trade after their frontcourt duo of Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert failed to work in the 2022-23 season, but in the 2023-24 campaign, those two players helped Minnesota reach the Western Conference Finals.
The Bucks will hope for a similar rebound this season. But if that doesn’t happen, perhaps Heat fans should keep Lillard in mind as a possible target — again. He’s 34 years old and will have to answer some questions this season about whether or not he’s still at the top of his game, but a trade for him would certainly pump some new life into South Florida basketball.
