The Milwaukee Bucks came into the 2024-25 season hopeful that having both Damian Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo fully healthy and coming off a full training camp together would vault them back into being a threat in the Eastern Conference. Instead, the Bucks are 2-6 with their only wins over the tanking Jazz and the Sixers on opening night — who were without Joel Embiid and Paul George and have also looked awful to start the season.
It’s been rough on both sides of the ball for the Bucks, as they are in the bottom half of the league in both offensive and defensive rating through the first few weeks of the season, and while things should improve if and when Khris Middleton can get back healthy for an extended period of time, it’s also pretty clear this roster has some flaws in need of fixing. The problem for the Bucks is, as a second apron team, making a trade is extremely difficult, as they’ve found out the hard way recently.
On Friday’s episode of NBA Today, Brian Windhorst said the Bucks have “called pretty much the whole league” trying to find a trade that could improve their roster, but have run into the same issues with just about everyone.
“The Bucks are doing something that we don’t see very often, which is scouring the trade market in the first week of November,” Windhorst said. “As I was talking to teams this week, they were like, ‘The Bucks just called. The Bucks just called.’ I think the Bucks right now are just kind of searching and trying to cover their bases. And by the way, Giannis is not on the table, Dame is not on the table, they’re looking to try and (find) help for some of their wing play — Khris Middleton’s absence has been extended.
“I talked to one team who said, ‘Yeah, we talked to the Bucks. We came up with two or three different scenarios and realized we’re not allowed to make any of those trades.’ The Bucks are hemmed in as a second-apron team with the new rules. They can’t aggregate players together, they can’t put like two or three players together in a trade. They can’t do a trade where they bring in more money. They have traded away the next six first round picks, either the picks or the swaps, they have traded away the next six second round picks. They are $75 million in the luxury tax. I don’t think help is on the way through the trade market. But they are making calls, which is interesting because from what I can tell, they called pretty much the whole league.”
The two players the Bucks were reported to be shopping over the summer (and even last trade deadline) were Bobby Portis and Pat Connaughton, but as Windhorst notes, being unable to aggregate those salaries together means they have to find a player to trade for that matches salary exactly or makes just a little less than either of those two. Given Portis makes just over $12.5 million and Connaughton makes just under $9.5 million, that’s a tough thing to do if the goal is to add a strong contributor for a contender. As such, Windy doesn’t expect them to find a miraculous deal out there, and it sounds like, despite the front office’s best efforts in working the phones, it’s going to come down to this roster to turn things around in Milwaukee.