Trade scenarios between the Milwaukee Bucks and Golden State Warriors have been pondered for years leading up to this summer's fateful Giannis Antetokounmpo departure, but the conclusion has been reached time and time again that the Warriors didn't have enough to execute the deal. Now that Giannis is gone and the Warriors struck out this summer, you'd think the conversation would be over.
But the Bucks and Warriors were linked once again in a mock trade proposal by Bleacher Report that would include eight players and two draft picks being swapped between the two teams:
MILWAUKEE RECEIVES: Jimmy Butler, Brandin Podziemski, Moses Moody, Will Richard, the Warriors' 2027 First-Round Pick (Top 4 Protected) and 2031 First-Round Pick
GOLDEN STATE RECEIVES: Tyler Herro, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Myles Turner and Kevin Porter Jr.
In a vacuum, it does make sense for the Bucks to acquire some young talent and draft picks for some of its veteran players. But when you take into account the culture reset that the Milwaukee Bucks are undergoing, the hometown narrative fueling Tyler Herro, and the combined value of the four players that the Warriors would receive, this would undo so much of the progress Milwaukee has made this summer in building a fresh start for Bucks basketball.
The Milwaukee Bucks have no incentive to tank, so it's not in their best interest to dump four potential starters.
The Bucks don't control their own first-round pick until 2031, and even then, the NBA has altered draft lottery odds to further disincentivize tanking. So the idea of trading away four starter-quality players, three of whom are 26 years old or younger, does nothing to help Milwaukee besides giving them an outside chance at a high lottery pick in 2027 or 2031.
Furthermore, the young players they'd take back are far less exciting than what they already have on the roster. Sure, it'd be fun to bring back another Wisconsin native in Podziemski, but not at the cost of dismissing the progress and commitment they've made to this iteration of the team, just as Bucks players begin returning to town and building toward the season ahead.
In a vacuum, Herro alone should be worth two or more unprotected first-round picks. To throw in a starting center, the reigning Sixth Man of the Year runner-up, and an untapped talent of Porter Jr.'s caliber for a handful of young prospects with way more to prove doesn't put the Bucks in a position to grow any more than the current iteration does.
There is a world in which the Bucks and Warriors make sense as trade partners. Turner and Kyle Kuzma's combined money adds up to get close enough to Jimmy Butler's contract for a salary dump.
However, it'd be shocking to see Milwaukee move on from Herro and Jaquez before even getting a chance to see what they can do, as these are two players that the Bucks' front office saw as worthy inclusions in a deal for the greatest player in franchise history. In the same breath, they already turned most, if not all of these players away in trade talks with Golden State already.
If they really wanted the Warriors' limited young core, it would've happened by now. Instead, Milwaukee took another path, and I'd venture to say that despite the Giannis-sized hole left in the starting lineup, they came away from this ordeal feeling excited about what's to come.
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