Milwaukee Bucks: Could they really trade for Victor Oladipo?

Victor Oladipo recently said he’s looking to get out of Indiana, so do the Milwaukee Bucks have a reasonable trade package for him?

At his best, Victor Oladipo is one of the best two-way shooting guards in the league. Just two seasons ago, he averaged 23.1 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.3 assists, and a league-leading 2.4 steals per game while shooting 47.7 percent from the field and 37.1 percent from deep. This form of Oladipo combined with Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Khris Middleton would make an extremely scary Milwaukee Bucks’ big three, probably even better than the championship-winning trio of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Robertson, and Bob Dandridge.

The potential upside of a trade like this is immense, but there are definitely some setbacks and barriers to a blockbuster deal. For starters, whether the Bucks even want to make a move for him is up for debate. Sure, they’d be getting a star that fits very well with their roster, but he only has one year left on his contract. Translation: It’s an all-in move for 2021.

Only having that one year and Oladipo saying he wants out could mean that the Pacers will be desperate to move him, and the asking price may be low because they will be looking to get something back for him instead of letting him walk for nothing next offseason. The length of his contract isn’t the only aspect that factors into the decision for both sides.

His salary of $21 million for 2021 is pretty modest for a player of his caliber. His salary won’t break the bank, and it makes it a lot easier to make contracts line up for a trade. Using the NBA Trade Machine, the Bucks would make salaries line up with only Bledsoe and Divincenzo. On the other hand, because he doesn’t have an outrageous salary number, they don’t need to offload it like the Thunder may try to do with Chris Paul’s gargantuan contract.

Another concern to take into account with Oladipo is his injury history. In 2019, he had a horrific leg injury that kept him out for a full year. When he came back in January, he was rusty, and the Pacers had learned to play without him. In the 19 games he played, he averaged just 14.5 points, his lowest since his rookie campaign while shooting just 39.4 percent from the field. Then, his Pacers got swept by the Miami Heat, and he struggled to get into a rhythm until game four when he hit five threes, scored 25 points, and added five steals, but it was too little too late.

In trade negotiations, the Pacers will surely downplay his lackluster production coming off of his injury and explain it away as rust, but the Milwaukee Bucks could leverage it. They could also use the fact that at many times the Pacers looked like a better team without him on the court and got used to playing together without him.

Earlier I mentioned Eric Bledsoe being a big part of the trade, and it’s because he is the Bucks’ most valuable tradeable asset, and he has the highest salary other than Middleton or Antetokounmpo. It would be interesting to see how interested the Pacers are in Bledsoe, if at all.

Indiana got Malcolm Brogdon from the Milwaukee Bucks last offseason and see him as their point guard of the future, so pairing him with Bledsoe may be a tough sell. Also, those two have already played together, and while a bunch of other factors were at play, they couldn’t get to the finals with that backcourt duo. If the Pacers don’t want Bledsoe at all, then this gets a lot harder to make happen.

Maybe they want George Hill more because of his shooting and willingness to come off the bench, but he’s nowhere near the player that Victor Oladipo is, and they’d have to give up a lot more to make that work. Also, they seem set for big men with Domantas Sabonis and Myles Turner, so Brook Lopez likely wouldn’t be on their radar.

Divincenzo is a nice piece, but he’s more of a sweetener than a main part in a trade for a stud like Oladipo. It would have to be Bledsoe unless the Pacers wanted to make their power forward position exclusively foreign guys and take Ersan Ilyasova off of Milwaukee’s hands.

There isn’t a lot of creativity that can be had with a trade offer from Milwaukee’s standpoint. They have very few assets that push the needle in trade talks, and very few players that can make salaries align with Oladipo’s. A good place to start would be Bledsoe and Divincenzo or the Bucks first-round pick, which, coincidentally, is from the Pacers. That would give the Pacers some extra depth and guys with contracts that they’ll have for more than just next season and give the Milwaukee Bucks a big star to pair with their All-Star duo.

Even though Indiana might not have a ton of leverage in trade talks with their star clearly disgruntled, they still aren’t going to just give him up for nothing. Sometimes trades come out completely one-sided, and you never know what they’ll ask for, so it’s at least worth a call even if it is a long shot.