Milwaukee • Milwaukee Bucks point guard Damian Lillard tore his left Achilles tendon in the first quarter of Sunday’s Game 4 loss to the Indiana Pacers, the team announced Monday, ending his season and putting his status for next season in question.
The result of Monday’s imaging confirmed what Lillard and the organization feared when he crumpled to the floor halfway through the first quarter, trying to track down an offensive rebound. Lillard successfully got the Bucks an extra possession, but the result of tracking that rebound down was disastrous.
Lillard, 34, missed the final 14 games of the regular season with what was eventually diagnosed as a deep vein thrombosis (blood clot) in his right leg. While the initial expectation was missing the entire postseason, Lillard returned to action in Game 2 against the Pacers after not playing full-contact basketball for over a month.
The nine-time All-Star now faces a grueling rehab process to return to the floor after 13 NBA seasons. An Achilles tear typically comes with an 8-12 month recovery timeline, meaning Lillard is likely to miss the early part of next season and could be out for most of it.
Meanwhile, the Bucks will try to stave off elimination without Lillard in Game 5 on Tuesday in Indianapolis, trailing 3-1 in their first-round playoff series.
“You see your teammate being down and your first thought is, ‘Come on, get up, get up, get up,’ ” Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo said. “Took some time being down, couldn’t get up and then you’re like, ‘OK, let’s see.’ The head trainer goes out there. The physio goes out there. Kind of check what it is, but the moment you see a player not getting up and he’s limping and he cannot walk on his own, you kind of know that it’s serious.
“Especially for a guy like Dame, that is a competitor. He wants to play in big games. He wants to help the team win. When you see a guy like that not able to walk on his own, you know this might be serious and then you kind of hope that it’s the best-case scenario. And for now, we just hope it’s the best-case scenario for him, for his health. That’s pretty much it. It’s tough.”
Milwaukee Bucks’ Damian Lillard grimaces as he falls to the floor against the Indiana Pacers during the first half of Game 4 of a first-round NBA basketball playoff series Sunday, April 27, 2025, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)
The diagnosis is a disastrous scenario for a team that had its back against the wall heading into the postseason.
For the first time since 2017, the Bucks did not put together a strong enough regular-season record to host a first-round playoff series. But an eight-game win streak without Lillard helped them close the regular season with a 48-34 record.
Yet, the Bucks’ playoff performance will always play an important role in the perception of the team, and Milwaukee now faces the possibility of getting eliminated in the first round for the third straight postseason, although injuries have played a significant role in every loss.
As the Bucks head out on the road, where they’ve lost eight consecutive playoff games, they will attempt to take the first step toward doing the highly improbable: coming back from a 3-1 series deficit. Only 13 teams in NBA history have done it. Entering this postseason, according to the NBA, teams that lead a best-of-seven series 3-1 go on to win the series 95.5 percent of the time (275-13).
While not having Lillard on Tuesday will hamper the Bucks, Lillard’s injury will affect so much more than just this postseason.
Lillard turns 35 in July. He averaged just under 24.9 points per game this season, dishing out seven assists on 44 percent shooting from the field and 37 percent from beyond the arc, both percentages career bests. Prior to this season, Lillard’s last significant injury came during the 2021-22 season when the former Weber State guard missed 47 games due to an abdominal strain.
An Achilles tear is one of the most serious injuries for an athlete. It can take up to a year to fully recover, and even if Lillard gets back on the floor, it is often difficult for players to return to the same performance level they had before the tear. This injury will also likely prevent any team from asking about acquiring Lillard in a trade.
Like Antetokounmpo, Lillard is owed $54.1 million next season. But while Antetokounmpo’s contract runs through the 2026-27 season with a player option for the 2027-28 season, Lillard’s runs through the 2025-26 season with a player option for the 2026-27 season.
At this year’s trade deadline, the Bucks moved Khris Middleton to give their superstar duo the freedom they needed to carry the team’s offensive workload and also get under the punitive second apron.
With this devastating diagnosis, everything will fall on Antetokounmpo’s shoulders, and that is before considering how much the roster could change this offseason.
As highlighted when the Bucks agreed to a contract extension with general manager Jon Horst, the Bucks have many roster decisions to make. Antetokounmpo, Lillard, Kyle Kuzma and Tyler Smith are the only four players with guaranteed contracts for next season. They have AJ Green, Andre Jackson Jr. and Chris Livingston on non-guaranteed deals as well, but after that, the roster is full of question marks.
Pat Connaughton, Kevin Porter Jr. and Bobby Portis hold player options for next season with the chance to hit the open market. And while they hold various rights to the rest of the players on the roster, including center Brook Lopez, that would allow the team to sign some of those players to larger contracts than the minimum.
All of those players could decide to leave as unrestricted free agents this offseason. Some players might do so if they feel playing for the Bucks doesn’t give them the best chance to compete for a championship.
But the issues heading into the offseason do not end with potentially losing players in free agency; they also have control of very few draft picks.
While league rules require them to maintain rights to first-round picks in the 2026, 2028 and 2030 NBA Drafts, the picks they currently have rights to in those seasons are already tied up in pick swaps with other teams. And the Bucks traded away their 2025, 2027 and 2029 first-round selections in the deals to acquire Jrue Holiday in November 2020 and then Lillard.
The only first-round picks Milwaukee maintains full control over this offseason are their 2031 and 2032 selections, but they can only trade one of those two outright to keep from failing to meet the Stepien rule.
Antetokounmpo has long maintained that he will be happy playing in Milwaukee as long as the Bucks continue contending for championships. The two-time MVP’s desire to win another championship ring hasn’t diminished in any meaningful way.
“I’m trying to win a second ring,” Antetokounmpo said on the April 16 episode of Thanalysis, his brother’s podcast. “I really believe it, and I’ll say it here, this is one of my goals. Everybody plays to win, but me not having a second championship like I look back at my career, and everybody can say, ‘Oh, he had an incredible career,’ active Hall of Famer, first ballot, whatever, but me, my personal goal, if I’m not able to help my team win a second ring, I’m letting down myself.
“I really want to win a second one. Hopefully, I will do it. Hopefully, I’m healthy.”
With Lillard out indefinitely with one of the worst injuries an athlete can suffer, the Bucks’ ability to contend for a championship next season has been compromised. That could lead the Bucks to a difficult franchise crossroads as they try to figure out how to keep Antetokounmpo in the conversation to contend for championships.