Assessing The Athletic’s P.J. Washington trade for the Milwaukee Bucks

We’ve talked at length recently about how the Milwaukee Bucks can acquire a reserve big man as well as fill the P.J. Tucker, big wing defender role. Well, what if they could add a reserve big man that could defend bigger wings and is named P.J.? Seems like a no-brainer!

That’s exactly what The Athletic’s (subscription required) Eric Nehm did in pitching a hypothetical trade for Charlotte Hornets big man P.J. Washington. The 23-year-old hasn’t come up much as one of the common big man/big wing trade targets (Robin Lopez, Thaddeus Young, Mo Bamba, etc), but given his age, would be an interesting trade target.

He’s in his third NBA season after being taken 12th overall in the 2019 NBA Draft, has one more year left on his rookie contract after this season at $5.8 million, and would be rookie extension eligible this offseason like Grayson Allen was when they traded for him this past offseason. That salary fits right in line with what the Bucks could offer given their assets so he’s more attainable from that perspective as well.

The Athletic’s proposed P.J. Washington trade for the Milwaukee Bucks

As I mentioned, the Bucks would be able to piece together a trade for Washington much easier than some of the more expensive options out there (Robert Covington, Young, so on) but as Nehm notes, this also may not be enough to get it done for the Hornets.

We’ll get into that more in a bit but if the Hornets were willing to take this package from the Bucks then it is absolutely something I’d like to see them jump on. It’s also usually a sign that trade is unfair for one side but let’s get into that a bit more.