Every offseason, the mainstream media fires off a litany of Bucks trade proposals that read more like thought experiments to hit their daily quota than a serious plan to make both teams better.
ESPN's latest in particular is a real head-scratcher, and more importantly, it does nothing to fix Milwaukee’s core issue: building a real contender with smart pieces that work well around the All-World talents of Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The goal, according to writer Chris Herring, is to make the Bucks younger, better defensively, and less reliant on aging veterans like Brook Lopez.
"It also answers some immediate questions for the Bucks in terms of who holds down Lillard's spot while he rehabs and who replaces the aging, free agent Lopez in the middle. Milwaukee's defense improves -- perhaps considerably -- with these moves, making the club younger and giving it more upside," wrote Herring.
On paper, that’s reasonable. But in practice? This trade is all risk, no upside. Let’s break it down.
ESPN's trade proposal guts Milwaukee’s future for three rotation-level guys, and then some
Just to get the obvious disclaimers out of the way: Ayo Dosunmu is solid. Wendell Carter Jr. is a starting-caliber center when healthy. Jett Howard is a flier, but a competent and promising one. Nobody is arguing that these players aren't decent in their own ways.
But is this trio worth two first-round assets and the remaining upside of guys like Andre Jackson Jr.? Absolutely not. Milwaukee doesn’t have picks to burn. Every trade chip matters, especially with Giannis on the clock. (There is also no world where "Milwaukee's defense improves considerably" by trading away their best perimeter defender.)
This move nukes Milwaukee’s limited future flexibility and leaves them with a core that still doesn’t sniff title contention. If anything, it’s just rearranging the same pieces — and asking Giannis to buy into yet another retooling job with no ceiling.
This trade implies that the Bucks are just one or two young legs away from getting over the hump. That’s a misread of the team’s state, considering they just lost in the first round of the playoffs for the third year in a row. The issues are structural: no consistent offensive identity, an aging defense, and a roster that can’t survive long stretches without Giannis playing superhero. Carter and Dosunmu don’t fix that.
Even if you believe Lopez is gone, this doesn’t match Milwaukee’s moment. They need either a player with real star equity to serviceably replace Damian Lillard for at least one season, or a consolidation move that adds a true defensive anchor without bleeding picks.
Because if they can't get either of those, then all that's left is gunning for a cold, calculated teardown to replenish the cupboard and start over around Giannis in his twilight years. And this deal is simply neither of those things. Because it presupposes that the Milwaukee Bucks’ biggest problems are depth and youth, not direction.
Let’s be honest: this trade helps everyone except the Bucks. Chicago dumps Dosunmu before having to pay him and gets Kuzma. Orlando clears their logjam and gets picks back after overpaying for Desmond Bane. Milwaukee, meanwhile, eats the risk on injury-prone bigs and fringe guards, and lights what little draft capital they have on fire.
Worse, it locks them into the mediocrity they're grappling to get out of. It offers no real reset and no real leap. Just more of the same.
Rolling out a core of Dosunmu, perhaps AJ Green and Gary Trent Jr., Giannis, and Wendell Carter Jr. and hoping it’s enough is simply not a sound basketball plan, either. The spacing looks doomed to fail on paper, and no defense is robust enough to offset that. Not in this East. Not with Orlando, New York, and Indiana stacking weapons like it’s an arms race.
If the Bucks are going to gamble with their last few trade assets, it needs to be for a real difference-maker -- not a batch of serviceable role players who won’t move the needle in a playoff series. This proposal misunderstands where Milwaukee is and what Giannis needs.
The Bucks are at an inflection point. Either push the right buttons or prepare for the endgame.