3 players the Milwaukee Bucks should avoid acquiring at the trade deadline

Everyone has their favorite trade deadline target or targets. It may be off the buyout market or via trade, but every fan has those players that they want the Milwaukee Bucks to acquire.

It’s fun to come up with fantasy trades to get guys that help the team repeat as champions but as much as I enjoy positivity and talking about how fun it would be to add players like Thaddeus Young or P.J. Washington to the team, I want to make it clear who I would not want the Bucks adding.

The Bucks are a game out of the first seed in the East and, for as inconsistent as they’ve been, adding the wrong guy at the deadline could absolutely hinder their chances at a repeat. They have limited assets and if they’re going to swing for the fences, they need to make the right decision. Adding any of these three dudes would very much not be in my dream scenarios for the deadline.

Players the Milwaukee Bucks should avoid acquiring at the deadline – #1: Daniel Theis

We’ve ragged on Daniel Theis on this here site in the past for being a bad acquisition for the Bucks and I’m going to double down. Do the Bucks need help up front? Probably, but it shouldn’t come in the form of Theis.

I’m not going to sit here and say that Theis is a bad player by any means. He would likely help the Bucks in a vacuum, but we don’t live in said vacuum. Other factors go into an acquisition like this and what it would take to get Theis compared to what he would provide is not worth it.

In 26 games (21 starts) for the Houston Rockets this season, Theis is averaging 8.4 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 0.7 blocks per game in 22.5 minutes. That’s fine! As a reserve big man, I’d take that any day of the week! He’s one of the better screen-setters in the league and his teams tend to clean up the defensive glass well when he’s on the floor.

But do I want to give up the assets that it would take to acquire that kind of reserve big man for an over $8 million cap hit this season and rises the next two seasons? No, not at all.

One of the problems that some contending teams make is that they get saddled with too many of those mid-sized contracts and handcuff themselves when it comes time to build their roster. The Bucks have two of those contracts next season in Brook Lopez (an actual very good big man) and Grayson Allen (an over 40 percent shooter on high volume from 3-point range who can defend).

I’ll pass on adding Theis into that group if it means giving up guys like Donte DiVincenzo and more to make the salaries work. Sure, DiVincenzo has struggled, but that’s still their most valuable trade asset and they can absolutely get more than Theis for him.