Milwaukee Bucks fans got a late September surprise this year, when they learned that Damian (Dame) Lillard had been traded to their favorite team.
The move was a long time coming. He had requested a trade from the Portland Trail Blazers way back on July 1, after spending the first 11 seasons of his career there. He said that he wanted to play for the Miami Heat, and they were the only team in the running for the rest of the summer.
This adds to the shock when we found out that the team he was traded to was the Milwaukee Bucks.
This blockbuster deal quickly became one of the biggest trades of the NBA offseason.
Lillard is a seven-time NBA All-Star and is widely regarded as the second-best point guard in the league behind Steph Curry. As with most trades, this deal came with a price as point guard Jrue Holiday was dealt away.
This was a bittersweet moment for Bucks fans because Lillard is an upgrade for the team, helping their chances of winning another championship. But losing Holiday hurts because his defense played a big part in getting the Bucks their first title in 50 years back in 2021.
This trade almost seems like the circle of life because right before the Bucks championship season of 2020-21, the team traded their point guard Eric Bledsoe to New Orleans for Holiday, and that made the difference in finally getting them over the hump in 2021. The 2023-24 Bucks squad could have the same future with the newly acquired Lillard.
A lot of credit goes to Bucks GM Jon Horst, who has had that role with the team since the summer of 2017. The Bucks have been consistently good since he was hired, and he continuously sought to improve the roster every year to keep winning championships.
He turned Greg Monroe, a center who came off the bench for Milwaukee in 2016-17 (his last year for the team) into Bledsoe, a deal that sent Monroe to Phoenix for Bledsoe in November 2017. Then, obviously, Bledsoe was traded for Holiday, and now Holiday was traded for Lillard.
Horst has continued to make great roster decisions. Most decisions seem to be designed to keep Giannis Antetokounmpo happy, including signing him to a three-year, $186 million extension before this season began.
Fast forward to the beginning of the NBA season, and the Bucks have gotten off to a 4-2 start with some up-and-down play. That’s no reason to worry. Adding someone like Lillard will take time to get all the chemistry right.
Look at the 2010-11 Miami Heat after they added LeBron James, they started a sluggish 9-8 before winning two championships in four years.
I also remember the Coach Bud years, where mostly every year we had great regular season success, but then fell early in the playoffs. I feel like new coach Adrian Griffin sees things in a long-term goal sense. These next couple of years of Bucks basketball will probably be the best we’ll see in our lifetime.