By this point, I’m sure most Milwaukee Bucks fans are tired of hearing about the Malcolm Brogdon trade. I’ll be honest, for a while, I was too! However, everyone who said the Bucks wouldn’t win a championship because they let Brogdon go has an egg on their face. It’s finally time we revisit this trade with open minds and open hearts because hey, the Bucks won a championship!
Of course, the trade I am referring to is the Brogdon sign-and-trade deal to the Indiana Pacers from 2019, where the Bucks received three draft picks, with one being a first-round pick. Brogdon spent the first three seasons of his NBA career with the Bucks after being selected in the second round, 36th overall in the 2016 draft.
Brogdon had a lot of success as a Buck, winning Rookie of the Year in 2016-17 and averaging 12.8 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 3.6 assists in 187 games (112 starts). He was one of the few hits the Bucks have gotten in the draft over the last 10 years, but he left the team as a restricted free agent to go to the Pacers.
A lot was made of this trade when it happened and in the following three seasons. Brogdon has turned into a fantastic player for Indiana, as many expected he would. Personally, I don’t hold any ill will towards Brogdon and I’m glad he has been able to find a home with the Pacers and have a role he may not have had with the Bucks. Adam McGee did the initial grade for the deal, giving it a C letter grade, but let us go over it once again.
The financial impact of the Malcolm Brogdon trade for the Milwaukee Bucks
Perhaps the biggest factor in some people’s minds for the Brogdon trade was the financial aspect. Brogdon received a four-year, $85 million contract from the Pacers (well, technically the Bucks but you know what I mean) and for a lot of folks, it was seen as the Bucks being cheap and not wanting to pay Brogdon.
The Bucks did save on the luxury tax by not matching the offer that the Pacers gave Brogdon. I’m sure that did play some part in why the Bucks chose not to bring him back, but as we’ve seen, the Bucks have gone well into the luxury tax this offseason. I’m not the person to defend owners not spending money, but they’ve made it clear they’ll spend into the tax.
The Bucks not bringing Brogdon back didn’t create any extra space in the salary cap after they re-signed Brook Lopez that same offseason. It would have created a trade exception of around $10 million but due to some mismanagement of the cap with regards to the Lopez contract or Hill’s guaranteed money, they did not get the trade exception.
I still believe they should have matched the offer. The team was good enough to go into the tax for and Brogdon has proven to be worth the money, but we’ll get into that now.
The on-court impact of the Malcolm Brogdon trade for the Milwaukee Bucks
The trade was also seen as them making a choice that because they had already signed fellow guard Eric Bledsoe to an extension, they were choosing Bledsoe over Brogdon. That is an interesting angle to take.
If the Bucks believed that Brogdon was worth going into the tax for, they would have matched the offer. They just didn’t think he was worth the contract that the Pacers gave him. The Bucks gave Bledsoe $15 million less than what Brogdon got from the Pacers, so they probably had a number closer to that in mind for Brogdon.
I don’t think they liked Bledsoe more than Brogdon, I think it was more of an issue that the contract was more than what they had set as their value for Brogdon. But to the actual on-court impact of the deal.
Brogdon has gone on to be an All-Star caliber player for the Pacers in his first two seasons there. Across 110 games, all starts, Brogdon has averaged 18.9 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 6.5 assists. He has blossomed in a larger role, with his usage rate going up by six percent compared to his career usage rate in Milwaukee.
There is an argument to be had whether Brogdon would have produced these numbers as a member of the Bucks, but that remains to be seen. They should have given Brogdon a bigger role, but I don’t think he becomes the high-usage player that he is now. In his final season as a Buck, his usage was over 20 percent for the first time, but it was still behind Bledsoe, Khris Middleton, and Giannis Antetokounmpo. His usage rate in Indiana (25.6 percent) is the same as Middleton’s the last two seasons, that simply wouldn’t have happened with the Bucks.
There’s no doubt that Brogdon would have been a big help for the Bucks in the bubble. Even last year if they managed to keep him around after the Jrue Holiday trade (if they still made it), he would have been a great fit. But I don’t think Brogdon becomes the player he is now on the Bucks and that’s part of what Brogdon wanted as well, to maximize his talents and have a bigger role, something the Bucks couldn’t give him.
I think this is one of the rare trades that you can say eventually worked out for both sides. For the Bucks, they ended up winning a championship and have a true big three now with the addition of Holiday. There’s obviously the chance that they acquire Holiday while they have Brogdan too, but I don’t think it’s as likely.
Additionally, the first-round pick that they acquired in the deal from the Pacers was flipped to the Nuggets as part of the bigger Holiday trade (it ended up being R.J. Hampton, so not a huge loss at the moment).
For Brogdon, he has been given the chance to be the player he believes he could be. He’s been right on the border of being an All-Star the last two seasons but has been held back due to injuries, another factor as to why the Bucks may not have been as keen to give him that big contract. Regardless, he’s one of the two best players on the Pacers and has developed a nice chemistry with Domantas Sabonis.
The biggest gripe that I have with the deal is how the Bucks front office managed the cap during and after the deal. Getting a big trade exception would have been a huge help in acquiring another rotation player, but they fumbled it.
Again, I would have kept Brogdon. Even if you didn’t believe that he was worth the contract, that’s still a valuable prime-age player who you could include in a future deal, but I also like Brogdon as a player despite the injury issues and think he would have been valuable to the Bucks as well. Nevertheless, it’s moot now and both sides should be happy with their decision.