Lillard had long insisted he would only play for Miami, and when he ended up in Milwaukee instead, Butler called out the Bucks for tampering. Now, the Heat star has offered his thoughts on everything that went down.
“I’m happy for Dame to be somewhere where he’s wanted,” Butler said on NBA TV.
“He has a chance to win a championship… I’m still going to be me. I’m gonna go beat Dame, Giannis, and Adrian Griffin on our way to a title.”
Miami has long been considered one of the biggest threats in the league to land big-name free agents. Over the years, the team has managed to acquire the likes of LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Shaquille O’Neal and Alonzo Mourning.
Adding to the team’s allure is their legendary team president Pat Riley, who is famously known to throw his championship rings on the table when pitching to free agents.
But even Riley and his front office couldn’t get it done this time, with Miami simply unable to offer a package that interested Portland.
The Heat couldn’t send the Blazers much beyond Tyler Herro, while Portland was eventually able to land a package headlined by Jrue Holiday and DeAndre Ayton, with Holiday then shipping off to Boston in exchange for Robert Williams III, Malcolm Brogdon, and two first-round draft picks.
Anthony Davis is among the Lakers players who haven’t forgotten about the Nuggets’ taunts after they won the championship.
Denver swept LA in the Western Conference finals, and obviously went on to win the 2023 NBA Championship after defeating Miami in the Finals.
One incident in particular has stuck with Davis and when the Lakers play the Nuggets on opening night, expect there to be some hard feelings.
At the Nuggets championship parade, head coach Michael Malone was introduced to the crowd as the Lakers’ daddy.
“It’s very motivational,” Davis said, per Harrison Faigen. “I mean, obviously KCP [Kentavious Caldwell-Pope] is my guy so you kind of congratulate him, like ‘you got this one.’ But it was just a lot of like, the talking, and ‘the Lakers dad.’ There was just so much of that going on; it was like ‘All right, we get it, y’all won.’ But me and Bron had some conversations like, ‘We can’t wait.’”
The big man also says that he doesn’t want all the responsibility to be on LeBron’s shoulders this year and hopes he can play at an MVP level himself.
“We had enough to win, but it’s a lot of motivation,” Davis said. “All the talking that’s been going on this summer. We still have our core. Now that we have a full camp, we’ll be really good. A lot of teams forgot about [Christian] Wood, he’s prepared. I’m on myself after every game. Hopefully I’ll be in those [MVP] conversations. Helping the guys out, not leaving it all on LeBron.”
As well as adding another big man in Christian Wood to help take the load off AD, the Lakers added Gabe Vincent, Taurean Prince, Cam Reddish and Jaxson Hayes to the roster.
It will be interesting to see how they stack up, especially against recently bolstered teams in the East like the Celtics and the Bucks.