After a season away from the NBA, Trey Lyles appears ready to come back. If he is honest, he probably never wanted to leave in the first place.
The former Sacramento Kings forward officially confirmed his departure from Spanish giants Real Madrid this week, ending a one-year stint in Spain that, he will be hoping, reminded NBA teams that he can still play. Lyles’ exit had been expected for several weeks, with reports indicating that his priority was always a return to North America rather than a longer stay in Europe, but in light of his departure, the general manager of Greek giant Panathinaikos, Dimitris Kontos – who were pursuing Lyles for next year, and may still do – confirmed that Lyles wants to try the American market first.
Lyles’s Successful Gap Year
Lyles leaves Real Madrid after a good first – and, he will be hoping, only – season in Europe. In EuroLeague play, he averaged 13.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 42 games while shooting 51.1% from the field and 45.9 from three-point range, leading Real in scoring and ranked second on the team in rebounding as the Spanish giants reached the EuroLeague final.
His strongest moment came on the biggest stage. In the EuroLeague championship game against Olympiacos, Lyles scored 24 points, including 21 in the first half, nearly carrying Real Madrid to the title. Across all competitions during the 2025-26 season, he averaged 12.5 points while shooting 49% from the field and 42% from three-point range in 74 games.
For a player trying to re-enter the NBA market at age 30, it was possibly the best audition he could have had. Any move back at that age, though, is always going to be tough.
Turning 31 in November, Lyles’s long-coveted upside is behind him now, and although he has had a strong season to go along with ten years of being a decent NBA player, eleven years of new draft classes have come and gone in that time, with each one pushing the older statesmen further down the pecking order. Lyles is one of those now, which, if he is honest, he also probably does not want, but is stuck with. He will be hoping that the Real Madrid stint threw a log onto the smouldering fire of his former NBA career.
Ten Years In The NBA To Date
Lyles’ NBA career began when the Utah Jazz selected him with the 12th overall pick in the 2015 NBA Draft after one season at Kentucky. But his NBA career never quite followed the trajectory expected of a lottery pick. Instead, Lyles was a rotation player passed around between six different teams. He spent his first two seasons in Utah before being traded to the Denver Nuggets in 2017 in an absolutely terrible trade – Lyles’s rights and Tyler Lydon’s rights were dealt in exchange for those of Donovan Mitchell. (Lydon was out of the professional game entirely within three seasons. I’ll save you the bother.)
It was in Denver that Lyles had his best offensive season in 2017-18, when he averaged 9.9 points and 4.8 rebounds while helping Denver remain in playoff contention. After two years there, he moved to the San Antonio Spurs as a free agent, signing a two-year, $11 million contract, then spent six months with the Detroit Pistons, before eventually finding a long-term home with Sacramento.
Initially acquired in the Marvin Bagley III trade, Lyles would spend three-and-a-bit seasons with the Kings, the longest stint of anywhere in his professional career to date. By the time he left the Kings in 2025, Lyles had appeared in 662 NBA games across ten seasons with the Jazz, Nuggets, Spurs, Pistons and Kings, posting career averages stood at 7.6 points, 4.3 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game and shooting 34.7% from three-point range.
Those numbers do not jump off the page, certainly, and for his draft billing might represent a poor career return. Nevertheless, for ten years, Lyles was a player worth having on an NBA roster, and in his year in Spain, he further confirmed that.
When NBA opportunities dried up last summer, Lyles chose – or was stuck with – the European route, but he did well enough within it to earn a redux if he wants it. Real Madrid reportedly wanted to keep him, and several EuroLeague teams are said to be interested should the NBA plan work out, Panathinaikos included. Yet all indications are that Lyles is focused on returning to the NBA.
As a 6’9 four who can stretch the floor a bit, drive ball reversals, make extra passes and generally make the right decisions, with ten years of NBA experience to boot, Lyles fits a profile that virtually every contender looks for: a veteran stretch forward who knows his role. There are still sparks in that fire. Now, he needs a sixth team to bite.
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