Milwaukee Bucks: Trade season, why Jabari Parker is key to championship hopes

The obvious risk

Will Parker ever reach that level of play? Will he ever be healthy? What are the chances he doesn’t work out?

These are all fair questions, but not really ones that matter. The reality of the situation is that if the Bucks trade Jabari this season, they might not ever be talented enough to win it all. Antetokounmpo, Middleton, Bledsoe, and the rest of the team have enough talent to get to 50+ wins every year, but winning that championship is likely going to take more than that.

The best option for the Bucks is to keep Parker, and try to sign him to a deal with protections in case he gets injured. It’s possible he doesn’t sign a deal like that, but with cap space league-wide already so limited in the upcoming offseason, there’s a chance that no one else will sign a restricted free agent with an injury history like Jabari’s to a better deal.

With protections similar to the ones the 76ers placed in Joel Embiid‘s contract, if Parker was to be injured again, the Bucks would have a way out of paying him at least some of the money he would otherwise have been owed.

Now that the Bucks are committed to finding a new head coach, concerns over Parker having to play in the ultra-aggressive defensive scheme that he struggled so much in have decreased. He’ll likely never be a good defender, but defense is a team effort, and the best of teams can work around individual deficiencies on that end. The Bucks are exceptionally well prepared to do so, with the plethora of quality defenders they have.