Grading the Milwaukee Bucks’ NBA Trade Deadline deal for Jae Crowder
By Corey Moen
What the Milwaukee Bucks traded away in the Jae Crowder deal
As part of the three-team deal, the Bucks traded five second-round picks while sending Jordan Nwora, Serge Ibaka, and George Hill to the Indiana Pacers.
The draft picks are the most notable in this deal, as Milwaukee gave up a lot of them for one player, and they don’t have a first-round pick in the upcoming NBA Draft.
Draft picks for a championship-contending team are not important, and young developmental players don’t help Milwaukee in the long term, so the moves to offload draft picks are perfect because this is a veteran-led team. Milwaukee needed to acquire a defensive-minded player who could help them now.
Jordan Nwora, George Hill, and Serge Ibaka are all heading to Indiana. This move isn’t surprising as there were reports that Milwaukee offered Serge Ibaka, George Hill, and Jordan Nwora for Crowder previously, but the Suns ultimately declined the trade.
Here’s what Milwaukee has lost in these three departures.
Jordan Nwora:
A 2020 second-round draft pick out of Lousiville, Nwora could score in bunches and was a streaky shooter during his time in Milwaukee. He wasn’t a great defender and lost minutes to a more defense-first player in Wesley Matthews, so that made Nwora’s role on the team tenuous. Waiting to re-sign Nwora as a restricted free agent did not pan out in Milwaukee because while Nwora showed flashes of being a part of the rotation, his defense wasn’t consistent enough, and he has only played in 38 games this time season.
George Hill:
After re-signing with the Bucks in the 2021 free agency period, Hill was lauded as a valuable backup point guard in his first stint in Milwaukee. His second stint wasn’t as smooth as Hill fought through a knee and neck injury last season which hindered his performance in the 2022 NBA playoffs. This season, Hill played better but didn’t have much of an impact on the court and hasn’t played much recently so it made him expendable.
Serge Ibaka:
Ibaka was acquired on last year’s NBA trade deadline from the LA Clippers as an insurance policy for Brook Lopez, who missed most of the season with a back injury, and there were no guarantees he would return.
Well, Lopez did, and Ibaka immediately lost minutes. Ibaka only played in 19 games last season, and only 16 games this season. In recent weeks, the team and Ibaka had mutually agreed to find the big man a new team.
It’s not that Ibaka was bad in Milwaukee, but he wasn’t the dominant defensive force that he was in Oklahoma City and Toronto.
Overall, these three players were expected to be dealt at the deadline, and adding a guy like Jae Crowder, who will be a foundational championship piece, was worth the price.