Upon recent news that the Bucks may be interested in Chris Paul, Jack wrote why that probably wouldn’t be a good idea in terms of an on-court and locker room fit. I agree with that 100%, but the I think Bucks should still trade for CP3 since it could net them a second-round pick from the Clippers. Then they should immediately waive him. By making such a trade, Paul would never even suit up for Milwaukee, but they’d gain a future asset on the cheap.
This is a pretty straightforward process, but it
requires a few steps. First of all, the Bucks’ roster is full right now with 15 standard contracts. If they wanted to acquire someone new, someone already rostered needs to be traded or waived. In the case of the former, the Clippers likely want to move CP3 without taking back a player and his salary in return, so acquiring a current Buck for him might not be feasible. LA’s team salary has them within $1.3m of the first apron, where they are hard-capped for the remainder of the league year.
This is why they can’t simply waive Paul today: if he goes unclaimed on waivers, his cap hit for the 2025–26 season sticks around even as he departs, so they’d still only have $1.3m to fill the resulting vacancy. They’d have to fill it within two weeks: LA has 14 guys on their standard roster, and teams can dip below that league-mandated minimum for 14 days tops. As of today, a pro-rated veteran’s minimum is just under $1.5m, and a sophomore’s is just over $1.3m, so they’d be limited to a rookie—like their 2025 second-round pick Kobe Sanders, currently on a two-way deal—for their 14th standard contract, which would be pro-rated to $819k.
It won’t be until January 7th that they’ll have enough breathing room to sign a pro-rated vet minimum, as things currently stand. So the latest they could waive Paul and be in compliance with the 14-man rule would be December 24th. While it rarely happens with minimum contracts, a buyout might be an option, but Paul might not want to give any money back to the Clippers after they summarily sent him home the other week. He would have to give up at least $209k from what LA owes him here on out to shrink his cap hit enough for them to add a vet minimum.
Anyway, acquiring a player in a Paul trade wouldn’t necessarily solve their problems either. For one, they couldn’t acquire very much more than his $2.3m in incoming salary and doing so would push them even closer to their hard cap. Not a good place to be if injuries (recall that they employ Kawhi Leonard) necessitate filling that 15th roster spot at some point. They’d have to wait even longer than January for the pro-rated minimum salary to fall low enough and allow them to fit a 15th man beneath the first apron. Sure, they could acquire another minimum-salaried player in Paul’s stead, which could even save them money if it’s a rookie or sophomore minimum, but why would a rival trade even a little bit of value for a 40-year-old malcontent?
Bringing it back to the Bucks, they (and any other team) can easily acquire CP3 using the veteran’s minimum exception. Because that exception allows teams to add a minimum player via trade regardless of their apron situation (barring proximity to a hard cap, which the Bucks don’t face right now), they don’t have to give up any outgoing salary in the deal. So there’s no actual need for Milwaukee to send out Amir Coffey, Cole Anthony, or Andre Jackson Jr., who all make as much or less than Paul.
However, the Bucks would need to create a roster spot to accommodate a trade acquisition, and waiving Coffey would be the easiest from a purely financial perspective. His contract isn’t fully guaranteed until January 10th, and if he’s waived before January 7th, the Bucks will owe him zero since he’ll clear before his guaranteed date. While yes, they could use a bigger body on the wing, Doc Rivers has played him just 32 minutes since November 12th, almost entirely in garbage time. If they don’t think he’s good enough to crack their wing rotation, Milwaukee should move on, because there are better uses for their 15th standard contract slot, including this.
They could trade Coffey to his former team—though the Clippers probably don’t want him if they let him walk last summer—in exchange for Paul, and as long as they acquire and waive him before January 7th, LA would also not owe him anything. But why should the Bucks send the Clippers a get-out-of-jail-free card? Regardless of whether they trade Coffey or “nothing” (more on that later) to LA for CP3, Milwaukee is doing them a favor, giving them more flexibility by taking on CP3’s contract.
Milwaukee’s ability to absorb him is why the Bucks should acquire, then immediately waive CP3—once they create a roster spot. As mentioned, the Bucks are not hard-capped anywhere and nowhere near either apron. In fact, they’re $11.5m beneath the luxury tax threshold, even when you consider the $27.4m in dead salary on their ledger. That’s plenty of room to eat the minimum salary cap hit that would remain on their books after waiving Paul.
For their trouble, the Bucks deserve an asset from the Clippers in return. This is not unlike what we saw back in 2018 when Jon Horst took on the final year of Jodie Meeks’ contract from the Wizards. To rid themselves of Meeks’ $3.5m salary, Washington sent Milwaukee a 2020 second-round pick (which was traded a few months later, along with three other seconds, in exchange for Nikola Mirotic). LA has some seconds: they can trade their own seconds in 2031 and 2032, or their rights to Memphis’ 2026 second, though its protections would only send it their way if it falls between 43 and 60. Otherwise, it goes to Portland. If the draft were held today, Memphis would pick 43rd, so it’s unclear if it would convey to LA or to a team—like Milwaukee—who might happen to acquire it from LA.
Technically, the Bucks need to send something to the Clippers for the deal to work. This could be a future second, and in this case, it would assuredly be top-55 protected. However, Milwaukee has traded all of its second-round picks through 2032 in various transactions. The only one they own is Utah’s top-55 protected 2026 second, which is not going to convey: San Antonio will make the pick if it falls between 31–55, so they’ll receive it because Utah isn’t going to finish with one of the league’s best five records.
Milwaukee could send this pretty worthless pick to LA for Paul and one of their future second-round picks, particularly the two unprotected choices. They have other options to trade away too, namely cash considerations and draft rights they own on foreign players. The Bucks are permitted to send out nearly $8m in cash this league year, and they could even trade away as little as $1. As far as draft rights go, setting aside 2025 second-round pick Bogoljub Marković, the Bucks own rights to four European players from the 1994, 1995 (those aren’t typos), 2012, and 2015 drafts. One of those players isn’t even alive anymore (condolences to Ilkan Karaman’s family), but these can nevertheless be outgoing pieces in trades.
In any case, exacting a second-round pick to bail the Clippers out of their CP3/hard cap dilemma is reasonable, even if one of those far-off seconds is protected. While the Bucks could always hold onto their new pick and use it in whichever draft, it also might make for a decent trade chip, á la the Mirotic deal. That second-round pick cupboard needs restocking, and all it would cost Milwaukee is $2.3m.
