An Antetokounmpo trade is a must if he won’t agree to stay long-term in Milwaukee. The Bucks can prioritize draft compensation, depth, or returning star power. Wagner has yet to earn an All-Star nod, but he averaged 24.2 points a game with 5.7 rebounds and 4.7 assists through the 2024-25 season. Injuries slowed him last year; Milwaukee does its due diligence to ensure Wagner is in good shape this summer.<\/p>\n
In addition to Wagner, almost 25, the team brings in bright prospects in da Silva, Richardson, and Penda. Bitadze is a solid backup center capable of starting in stretches. Milwaukee would waive and stretch Isaac’s salary over seven years at $1.3 million per season. That’s just under the 15 percent max limit based on a $165 million salary cap, considering the Bucks have $22.5 million going to Damian Lillard for several seasons.<\/p>\n
Milwaukee can generate a $16.7 million trade exception by using its non-taxpayer mid-level exception of $15 million to take in Isaac. The trade proposal assumes the Bucks prefer to keep the latter exception available rather than add additional talent via free agency.<\/p>\n
The Magic and Bucks convince Trent and Sims to opt into their final years to play a significant role alongside Antetokounmpo in Orlando. If either refuses, the deal can be easily reconfigured. The Bucks trigger a first-apron hard cap of $209.1 million by taking back more salary than they send out, but the franchise is well below the luxury tax threshold.<\/p>\n
A resolution to the Antetokounmpo saga would be welcome. Partnering here with the Magic, the Bucks add a strong group of young players, centered around Wagner, along with an unprotected future first-round pick.<\/p>\n
Email Eric Pincus at eric.pincus@gmail.com and follow him on X\u00a0@EricPincus<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Antetokounmpo trade is a must if he won’t agree to stay long-term in Milwaukee. The Bucks can…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,141,140],"class_list":["post-314203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}