The Milwaukee Bucks were Zach LaVine's primary suitor at the trade deadline. Combing the market for available stars, they eyed the Kings guard as an efficient shotmaker and volume scorer. The deal never got done, however, and Bucks fans should be thankful it didn't.
LaVine's offensive talent comes with notable drawbacks: poor defense, injuries, and a bloated salary. His teams tend not to make the playoffs. All things considered, Bleacher Report named him the third-most overrated player in the league. As the Kings know from experience, trading for LaVine would have been a move destined for mockery.
Bucks spared themselves embarrassment by holding off on LaVine
Lavine's contract and availability issues are probably the biggest reasons for his appearance on BR's top 10 list of overrated names. Set to make $49 million next year on a player option, he is slated for season-ending surgery on his right hand.
Choosing that route might have to do more with Sacramento's tanking agenda than anything else, but even if LaVine could play through the injury, it's just another example of his off-and-on durability issues. He has played at least 65 games only three times since his sophomore season in 2015-16.
From the Bucks' perspective, a net profit in upside was never really there. The only way they could match his salary in a trade would be by sending out multiple rotation pieces. Milwaukee's outgoing package would have looked something like Kyle Kuzma, Bobby Portis, and another small salary. That's already too much in terms of minutes, size, and production in exchange for one player who isn't a two-way force and is a magnet for the injury report.
The Bucks made the right call by ultimately steering clear. LaVine's inclusion in the upper echelon of overvalued talent just serves as vindication.
It's not hard to imagine the response if LaVine came to Milwaukee and either couldn't play due to injury or simply failed to move the needle. The last thing this team needed was a repeat of last February's embarrassing fallout with Kuzma's disastrous play down the stretch and into the postseason.
The Kings already know what it's like to be lured in by LaVine. He produced a negative-4.9 on-off rating this season and a negative-10 after arriving in the De'Aaron Fox trade last year.
Aside from a pre-trade high mark with the Bulls, he has only registered a positive rating twice in his career. The last time he did that was 2020-21. For all his firepower, the evidence suggests that he isn't a winning player.
Instead of absorbing LaVine's oversized salary, sacrificing precious size and rebounding in the process, the Bucks stood pat in the market for stars. Instead, they made low-risk swings on potential. As an approach in general, and regarding LaVine in particular, that likely saved them a good deal of present and future pain.