Bucks get: Jrue Holiday from New Orleans; Bogdan Bogdanovic and Justin James from Sacramento; 2020 second-round pick (No. 60) from New Orleans (returning a pick originally belonging to Milwaukee)
Pelicans get: Eric Bledsoe, George Hill, 2020 first-round pick (No. 24), 2024 first-round swap rights, 2025 first-round pick (unprotected), 2026 first-round swap rights, and 2027 first-round pick (unprotected) from Milwaukee
Kings get: Donte DiVincenzo, Ersan Ilyasova and D.J. Wilson from Milwaukee
Milwaukee Bucks: B-
When Milwaukee gave up restricted free agent Malcolm Brogdon in a sign-and-trade deal with the Indiana Pacers last summer, my concern was that the Bucks doing anything short of maximizing their championship potential before Giannis Antetokounmpo decided whether to stay was a mistake. Well, that criticism certainly can't be leveled anymore. Milwaukee is all-in with this pair of trades.
From a fit standpoint, Holiday is close to ideal for the Bucks. He gives them another creator on the perimeter, helping solve the issues the Miami Heat's defense created for Milwaukee in the playoffs. Unlike some options to fill that void, Holiday isn't a liability playing off the ball, as his 37% accuracy on catch-and-shoot 3-point attempts in the tracking data era (since 2013-14) is right at league average, per Second Spectrum. That's a huge upgrade from Bledsoe, who has hit 33% of such attempts in the regular season and a horrific 29% in the playoffs.
Oh, yes, Holiday also happens to be one of the league's best perimeter defenders. Bledsoe is a very good one in his own right, but the bigger Holiday offers more flexibility for Mike Budenholzer to cross-match and use him against wings.
About the only drawback in terms of fit is that Holiday can be an unrestricted free agent at season's end. Clearly, the Bucks traded way too much for Holiday to simply be a one-year rental, so there must be some level of confidence in the organization that he'll be willing to sign an extension (something he can do now for up to a 5% raise on his current salary, which goes up to 20% after trade restrictions lift in mid-February), pick up his player option for 2020-21 or re-sign next summer.
Bogdanovic also upgrades Milwaukee's shot creation without sacrificing shooting. His ability to play with or without the ball is a strength. Bogdanovic was asked to do more shot creation when he was part of Sacramento's second unit, posting a usage rate of 24% as a reserve last season, according to Basketball-Reference.com, and handing out 3.5 assists per game. Those marks dropped to 21% and 3.2 per game, respectively, after Bogdanovic replaced Buddy Hield in the starting lineup.
At the same time, Bogdanovic's efficiency improved as he was able to make catch-and-shoot 3-point attempts a bigger part of his shot diet. His true shooting percentage jumped from .543 as a reserve to .591 as a starter. The Bucks are probably expecting to get that Bogdanovic next season and beyond. Because Bogdanovic didn't come to the NBA until age 25, he is old for a first-time free agent at 28. We might already have seen his best basketball. Still, Bogdanovic's broad skill set should hold its value through the length of his new contract.
After making two huge moves Monday night, there's more work ahead for Milwaukee. When completed, these trades will give the Bucks seven players under contract -- a presumptive starting five of Bogdanovic and Holiday at guard, Khris Middleton and Antetokounmpo at forward and Brook Lopez at center, with two little-used players (James and Thanasis Antetokounmpo) as the lone signed reserves.
As the Bucks fill out their bench, they'll be limited by a hard cap at the luxury-tax apron, $6.3 million greater than the tax line, because they're acquiring Bogdanovic in a sign-and-trade. Notably, their salary for apron purposes will include $4 million in unlikely incentives for Holiday.
Assuming the team keeps 14 players on its roster and this year's No. 24 pick is sent to the Pelicans, Milwaukee will have about $15.2 million above and beyond players making the veteran's minimum to spend total -- including the first-year salary for Bogdanovic's new contract.
I'd expect the Bucks to invest heavily in picks late in the second round to give them a little more breathing room. Second-round picks count at their actual salary with regard to the apron, whereas an undrafted rookie signed for the minimum ($898,310) counts at the higher veteran's minimum ($1.62 million for players with at least two years of experience). That $700,000 in savings could make a huge difference in whether Milwaukee can afford to re-sign free agents Pat Connaughton and Wesley Matthews or replace them using a portion of the midlevel exception.
It remains to be seen whether the Bucks can approximate the depth that made them a juggernaut during the past two regular seasons. For now, I think this starting lineup is better suited to win in the playoffs. It's worth remembering that while we haven't seen much of Holiday in the playoffs on also-ran teams in New Orleans, he has been great in limited opportunities. During the 2019 postseason, my analysis ranked Holiday ninth among active players in terms of playoff overachievement relative to the regular season.
We'll have a better sense of just how high the price for Holiday was when we find out whether Giannis plans to sign a supermax extension. If so, Milwaukee can be confident most of the picks headed to New Orleans will fall near the bottom of the first round. In that case, three picks and two swaps might not be an exorbitant price for Holiday, particularly if his addition helps convince Antetokounmpo to stay.
There's certainly a risk here for the Bucks. Nine months from now, they could be out both Giannis and Holiday, as well as the draft picks and their best young talent, DiVincenzo. In that worst-case scenario, Milwaukee could look back on this trade as complicating their ability to rebuild without their own draft picks.
Assuming the Bucks have a good sense of their chances to re-sign both players, I like the gamble. Flags fly forever, and these trades give Milwaukee a much better chance of hanging a banner in the rafters precisely five decades after the team's first and only championship.
New Orleans Pelicans: A-
Although the Oklahoma City Thunder have a huge head start in the race to accumulate the most draft picks in the Western Conference, New Orleans is making a push to catch them. The Pelicans already had two extra picks and a swap coming from the Los Angeles Lakers thanks to the Anthony Davis trade, and now they add more to the stockpile.
As compared to the Lakers' picks, the ones from the Bucks offer far more upside if Giannis Antetokounmpo does leave. Even if not, picks in the 20s will provide the Pelicans a steady stream of cheap contributors as their own young players start to get more expensive, starting this week when All-Star Brandon Ingram hits restricted free agency.
I'm interested to see whether Bledsoe and Hill stick around in the Big Easy or are eventually rerouted elsewhere. With Lonzo Ball as the incumbent at point guard, there's a crowd now at that position. Hill can easily slide to shooting guard, much like Holiday did beforehand, but 48 minutes probably aren't enough to keep both Ball and Bledsoe happy, meaning something might have to give.
My guess is New Orleans viewed part of the draft compensation as a payoff to take on the $38.9 million on Bledsoe's contract, which is partially guaranteed for 2022-23. I think that assessment of Bledsoe's value is a bit unfair, at least during the regular season, but it's also not clear what team has need for a competent veteran point guard who has proven untrustworthy in the playoffs.
If I were running the Pelicans, I think I'd have preferred a package built around quality young talent. It seems like that might not have been available; the idea the Brooklyn Nets might need to save such players for a potential James Harden trade surely couldn't have helped. In that case, New Orleans did well to extract so many draft picks from Milwaukee.
Sacramento Kings: B+
This is an interesting first move for the Kings after replacing Vlade Divac as general manager with Monte McNair. As a newcomer to the organization, McNair is viewing the roster with fresh eyes. This deal suggests he wasn't as high on Bogdanovic as his predecessors, who opted against trading the impending restricted free agent before February's deadline.
Most executives would have looked to match any offer for Bogdanovic, provided the bidding for him didn't get out of hand. After all, he is young enough to still be part of Sacramento's future. From a value standpoint, however, this deal is surely a win for the Kings. Instead of paying Bogdanovic market value for the next several years, they'll get two years of DiVincenzo on a bargain rookie contract that pays him $3 million this season and $4.7 million in 2021-22.
It's also entirely possible DiVincenzo is the better player by the time he wraps up his deal. After playing sparingly as a rookie, when he dealt with heel bursitis, DiVincenzo earned more regular playing time in Year 2 and made an impact. The Bucks' plus-12.2 net rating with him on the court ranked third among their rotation players behind Antetokounmpo and Middleton, per NBA Advanced Stats. As a result, DiVincenzo ranked in the top 50 in ESPN's real plus-minus.
Clearly, DiVincenzo isn't yet that good. His iffy shooting (34% on 3-pointers) made it more difficult for Budenholzer to keep DiVincenzo on the court in the playoffs, when his minutes per game dropped to 16.5 from 23.0 during the regular season. At 23, DiVincenzo has plenty of time to continue improving as a shooter.
Trading Bogdanovic should have the side effect of quieting Hield's complaints about coming off the bench. There has been plenty of speculation that Hield would be the shooting guard Sacramento would trade. I don't think that made sense given the Kings would have been selling low on Hield, who was far more productive in 2018-19 before signing the four-year extension that kicks in this season.
Part of the cost of getting DiVincenzo is taking back the contracts of Ilyasova and Wilson, who probably don't fit into Sacramento's plans. With the Kings comfortably between the salary cap and the luxury tax, their expiring salaries shouldn't be an impediment to whatever else the new front office has planned.