Back in February, the Milwaukee Bucks were circling the trade market looking for help. One of the biggest names floated around them? Zach LaVine.
To be fair, it made sense then. The Bucks' main flaws - being old and slow - would surely be offset by LaVine's athleticism and three-level scoring prowess. Alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard, another athletic wing who could push the pace and stretch the floor could never hurt. Or at least that's what the front office seemed to have in mind.
Fast forward to April, and it’s clear: the Milwaukee Bucks dodged a bullet.
LaVine, now on the Sacramento Kings after a headline-grabbing trade deadline, flamed out when it mattered most. With a chance to secure a playoff spot, the Kings got run off their own floor by the Dallas Mavericks, 120-106, in the Play-In. It wasn’t just a loss — it was a total collapse for a team that eventually parted ways with its general manager, too.
LaVine’s final line? 20 points on 8-of-19 shooting, three rebounds, nine assists and five turnovers. Empty calories. His impact was minimal. The offense sputtered with him on the ball, and defensively, he was as exploitable as ever.
The Play-In games just proved Milwaukee dodged a bullet
The Bucks had been rumored to be exploring LaVine ahead of the deadline, hoping to inject more scoring and secondary playmaking around their stars. But even then, there were red flags. Injury history. Ball-dominant tendencies. The ongoing question: Does he actually help you win?
Sacramento’s answer came loud and clear. In their biggest game of the season, LaVine gave them what he always does — a few highlights, a few tough shots and not much else. He doesn’t tilt the floor. He doesn’t elevate the guys around him. And when defenses tighten up, he fades.
Milwaukee’s front office will never say it publicly, but privately, they have to be breathing a sigh of relief. Instead of adding a volatile scorer with no playoff résumé, they looked elsewhere, let their roster gel and now head into the Indiana series with cohesion, chemistry and no LaVine-sized headaches to manage.
This writer said it then, and it bears repeating today: on paper, a Zach LaVine for Khris Middleton trade would have sounded intriguing—swapping an aging, injury-prone veteran for a younger, explosive scorer who had been lighting it up at the time. Yet, for a team looking to win now, the move would have only created more problems than it solves.
Instead, the team ended up getting Kyle Kuzma - someone who brings with him problems of his own, especially on the offensive end, but at the end of the day, someone who solves a lot of this team's problems with his defensive versatility.
Once again, the Bucks bet on their internal talent and went a different direction at the trade deadline. You can say what you want about where they are today thanks to (or no thanks to) their new additions, but at the end of the day, one team is the fifth seed heading into their most promising playoff run in a while, and the other just dropped a precious Play-In game.
And once again, Zach LaVine proved why he’s not the answer for a team trying to win something real.
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