The All-Star guard is back
The past several days have seen such dramatic improvements in Damian Lillard’s situation that few could have foreseen even just a week ago. In one week, we’ve gone from optimism, to more optimism, to being cleared, getting a Game 2 or 3 timeline, to questionable, to ESPN’s Shams Charania now stating on NBA Countdown that Dame will hit the floor for the first time in over a month tonight. We know well how unprecedented this all is, but still, it’s simply incredible that he’ll be playing NBA basketball not even a month after being diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis in his right calf.
His last action was exactly five weeks ago on March 18th in Golden State, but he’d dealt with the calf pain persistently before then. Quick action by the Bucks’ training staff and recognizing this was more than your garden-variety calf strain led to the precautionary measure of putting Lillard on blood thinners. A week later after seeing specialists, he received the diagnosis of a blood clot in the calf and was declared out indefinitely. But reports of the team’s hopefulness that he’d play again this season came out quickly, speaking perhaps to their confidence in how early they’d caught it.
Blood clots are no joke. They’re life-threatening no matter where in the body for the chance they’ll spread, particularly to the lungs. Being on blood thinners means that contact sports are a no-go. For this reason, the time athletes miss is typically measured in months, not weeks. However, I trust that medical professionals know what they’re doing in permitting Dame to play again, taking him off the thinners last week. If it wasn’t safe for him to play, they wouldn’t let him.
This couldn’t come at a better time for Milwaukee. After losing Game 1 handily, scoring just 98 points, handing out a mere 15 assists, and hitting only 24.3% of their three-point attempts, Dame’s creation and shooting are badly needed. Had he played in just seven more games, Lillard would probably be making an All-NBA team after averaging 24.9 PPG, 7.1 APG, and a .448/.376/.921 line on the year. That stacks up well alongside some of his best seasons in the league, and better than a number of his Portland campaigns.
He ended up needing just a few days of reconditioning to get back on the floor, and while there will likely be some rust he’ll need to shake off, it may not be from a cardio standpoint. While he was out, Dame was still able to work out and kept getting shots up—just practicing on his own. The most important thing will be reintegrating him into the offense, especially if it involves the Bucks’ recently successful late-game group of Giannis plus four bench players. He could take Kevin Porter Jr.’s role in those situations. It seems almost guaranteed he’ll be on a minute restriction tonight, but even 25 minutes of him will go a long way.
All in all, it’s medically amazing that he’ll be back and it could end up saving the Bucks’ first round series agains the Pacers since it’s coming after only a game. Dame and the Bucks will also have two days off before coming back to Milwaukee for Game 3 on Friday, and could get another two-day break between Games 5 and 6. For the first time in what feels like forever, the Bucks’ rotation (and basically their entire roster) is healthy in the postseason.