Point guard Luca Vildoza will return to the NBA. As a free agent, he has confirmed he will sign a contract for the 2022-2023 season with the current league champion, the Milwaukee Bucks, and will be able to play in the next Eastern Conference playoffs.

The return comes at the end of Vildoza’s contract with the New York Knicks, and the point guard has recovered from an operation on one foot to keep him away from the fields.

His representative, alex saratsis of the firm Octagon Sports will finalize the details of the acquisition of Vildoza including Jon Horstgeneral manager of the Bucks, sources confirmed Adrian Wojnarowski, the ESPN reporter who usually has an inside scoop on the NBA transfer market.

Thus, the Argentine National Team base will return to the most important league in the world, after going through the Knicks, who refused to have him in their franchise. in October 2021before the start of the current season and while recovering from surgery.

If the deal ends, Vildoza will be able to play Greek Giannis Antetokounmpo, one of the solid candidates for best player of the year and Bucks main figure champions who, two dates after the end of the regular season, are qualified for the playoffs with the third best record in the East.

The good news for Vildoza will come the same week as a milestone for Argentine basketball: the entry – for the first time in history for a national player – of Manu Ginóbili into the NBA Hall of Fame.

The man from Mar del Plata was champion in 2020 with baskonia of the ACB League of Spain and was selected Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the final.

“Making the decision to leave has not been easy. However, I have to take the step. To play in the NBA for me is the ultimate dream,” he had declared at the time.

“This is what I projected when I was young and I played in my bedroom at home with my dad. I wanted and needed to achieve utopia. And measure myself,” Luca explained.

will now be added to two more Argentines playing in the NBA: Facundo Campazzo, very relegated to the Denver Nuggets (he didn’t participate in seven games), and Leandro Bolmaro, who alternated between the Minnesota Timberwolves and Iowa Wolves, his G-League team.

His tenure with the Knicks

Vildoza signed a contract for three seasons, but the link was not guaranteed and the franchise “deleted” him without having to pay him a dollar of nearly 13 million agreed, because he did so before Oct. 21, 2021.

After his participation in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games — the Argentine team lost in the quarterfinals along with Australia —, base appeared in Quilmes de Mar del Plata who arrived in the United States ready to fight for a place in the squad.

Along with him, four other players are vying for last place on the squad: Dwayne Baconperimeter of 26 years; Wayne Selden Jr.., 26 years of age onwards; Aamir Sims, pivot wing or 22 pivot; at MJ Walkerescort of 23.

But his situation quickly became complicated. He played just over 13 minutes in the Summer League: they were 8:25 in the first game, against the Toronto Raptors (no points on three shots, with 3 assists and 1 rebound) and 4:25 in the second, against Indiana. Pacers (no points on an attempt, with 1 rebound and 1 steal). At that second meeting he came out in pain. And he never came back.

The team played another four games in Las Vegas but the Argentine was short of minutes. The reason? That pain that he was barely allowed to play against the Indianapolis team was due to having fluid in the back of his right foot.

In the franchise they determined that the player should rest and do local treatment, which ultimately did not help him become part of the team despite SummerLeague.

DS