The Bucks traded four first-round picks \u2014 two outright, and two pick swaps \u2014 to the New Orleans Pelicans for Jrue Holiday in 2020. They fired Mike Budenholzer, who led them to that 2021 title, after Milwaukee was shocked in the first round of the 2023 playoffs by the eighth-seeded Miami Heat, led by Jimmy Butler. <\/p>\n
Milwaukee replaced Budenholzer with Adrian Griffin, whom Giannis Antetokounmpo advocated for. And the Bucks traded Holiday to the Portland Trail Blazers later that summer to acquire Damian Lillard, even though many around the league had \u201cDame Time\u201d penciled in for Miami.<\/p>\n
Griffin started the next season 30-13. However, the Bucks fired him, as the team\u2019s stout defense collapsed (no duh) with Holiday gone. There\u2019s no evidence Antetokounmpo demanded Griffin\u2019s ouster. But, similarly, if the team\u2019s star player stands up on a table and says, \u201cDon\u2019t do this,\u201d it usually isn\u2019t done.<\/p>\n
Lillard didn\u2019t provide the bump necessary to put Milwaukee back on top, either, culminating with the Achilles injury he suffered in last year\u2019s first-round playoff loss to the Indiana Pacers. Milwaukee last summer ate the $113 million \u2014 $113 million! \u2014 remaining on Lillard\u2019s contract via the waive and stretch provision to sign Myles Turner to a four-year, $107 million contract.<\/p>\n
So, let\u2019s not get it twisted. Antetokounmpo served the Bucks exquisitely. But the Bucks served him well, too. You notice how people rarely use the word \u201camicable\u201d unless it\u2019s followed by the word \u201cdivorce.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bucks traded four first-round picks \u2014 two outright, and two pick swaps \u2014 to the New Orleans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":{"0":"post-160240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento","8":"tag-sacramento","9":"tag-sacramento-headlines","10":"tag-sacramento-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}