Reactions to latest Milwaukee Bucks rumors regarding Donte DiVincenzo

Another day, another Milwaukee Bucks trade rumor involving Donte DiVincenzo!

It feels as though DiVincenzo’s name has been thrown into every reasonable trade rumor under the sun, whether it makes sense for the Bucks or not. This time, according to Bleacher Report’s Jake Fischer in a Spotify Greenroom with Marc Stein, he is being discussed by the Bucks in discussions to acquire wing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope of the Washington Wizards.

Fischer has become relatively reliable these last few months so we have to take his reporting here seriously, but we can certainly have our own opinions on the potential deal itself.

Reactions to potential Donte DiVincenzo for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope swap

I’ll be honest, this is really scraping the bottom of the barrel for potential DiVincenzo trades. And I like Caldwell-Pope!

Caldwell-Pope is in his first season with the Wizards after being traded from the Los Angeles Lakers and is averaging 11.3 points on 53 percent true shooting, 3.4 rebounds, and 1.0 steals per game in 29.2 minutes a night.

Known for being a 3 and D guy, Caldwell-Pope has seen the 3 part of that fall off this season. He’s shooting just under 37 percent from deep on 5.2 attempts, which is being dragged down by his 28.3 percent on pullup 3s, per NBA.com/stats. He wouldn’t have to do a ton of that with the Bucks (hopefully) so his 39.2 percent on catch-and-shoot 3s are more indicative of what his role would be if this were to happen.

Listed at 6’5″ and 204 pounds, KCP is an inch taller and a single pound heavier than DiVincenzo. He’d likely end up playing in a similar role without the ball-handling and being about the same, maybe worse on defense. He has the pedigree as a better shooter and if he’s asked to take fewer pull-up 3s, he’d be more comfortable.

Seriously, he might not even be better than what the Bucks saw from DiVincenzo last season. He shot the ball better from both 2 (44.4 percent for KCP, 47.5 for DiVincenzo) and 3 (36.8 percent for KCP, 37.9 for DiVincenzo on the same volume of attempts) while also doing other things better like rebounding, passing, and handling. Again, they’re at least the same on defense depending on how you feel about DiVincenzo’s gambles for steals, but it’s not a huge upgrade there either

We then get to the biggest problem, which is his salary.

Caldwell-Pope has a cap hit of just over $13 million this season so the Bucks would need to add more to this deal to make it work financially.

I’m not even sure how much better Caldwell-Pope is than DiVincenzo and they’d have to add another rotation player to get him? I’ll very much pass on that, thanks.

At that point, I’d rather the Bucks take the bet that DiVincenzo eventually returns to the form we saw from last season than have to give up multiple rotation players to get a marginal upgrade at that one spot. It isn’t even a position of need! Trade DiVincenzo for a big man or a big wing in his prime age, that’s it.

You have to consider where these rumors are coming from as well. Fischer is a reliable source, absolutely, but this screams that it’s coming from the Wizards or simply being spread from the Bucks to show that there’s interest in DiVincenzo.

I truly doubt this trade actually comes to fruition because of the salary as well as, uh, the actual ability of the player and how much he’s actually an upgrade over the potential outgoing player.

Stay tuned for any potential updates on this situation as we reach the 3 pm EST trade deadline. The only update I want is that general manager Jon Horst laughed and hung up the phone, though.