The Bucks’ offense has cratered without Giannis in the lineup—hopefully ameliorated as soon as tonight—and HoopsHype’s Michael Scotto is connecting them to Kings wing Zach LaVine. Plenty of recent reports
have mentioned that 5-13 Sacramento would entertain moving off their high-priced vets like LaVine and DeMar DeRozan. While the latter is a less optimal fit, LaVine is an intriguing, but much higher-salaried option. It’s not the first time the Bucks have looked into LaVine either.
Let’s look at the contract first. LaVine’s five-year max extension signed by the Bulls in 2022 appeared to be a misstep and made him one of the league’s most overpriced players. That’s paying him $47.5m this year with a player option for $49m in 2026–27, seemingly a lock to be exercised. Despite that onerous deal for a borderline All-Star a year removed from an injury-plagued season, Chicago didn’t need to attach more than a 2028 second-round pick to move him, and in fact received a 2025 first-rounder (their own, originally traded for DeRozan in 2021) in a three-way deadline deal with San Antonio and Sacramento.
I believe the price to acquire LaVine would be lower now in terms of draft assets. The 2025 first Chicago acquired in February was projected as late in the lottery, and while Milwaukee can only trade a second set of swap rights on their 2026 first-round pick, they do have firsts that can be dealt in 2031 and 2032. Placing lottery protections on them may be enough to get the job done. As far as salary-matching goes, Kyle Kuzma and Bobby Portis’ contracts wouldn’t quite be enough by themselves. But if the Bucks included a minimum player, even one making as little as Andre Jackson Jr. at $2.2m, it would just get them over the line.
The catch is that Portis isn’t tradeable until December 15th, thanks to the new contract he signed in July. Perhaps partially because of that, Scotto says nothing is imminent due to Giannis’ impending return and that Milwaukee has “conducted background due diligence on LaVine and others around the league, as usual.” So LaVine is likely one of a few names they’ve checked in on. Take this for what you will, but he also mentions that Kuzma and Kings owner Vivek Ranadive are both co-investors in Major League Volleyball. Seems like a very tenuous connection to me.
How might the fit be on the court? We’ll start with defense, which has always been a knock on LaVine. While there are times in his career—including during recent seasons with the Bulls—where he’s looked the part of a solid defender, he’s not the stopper the Bucks really need on the wing. However, he’s ever so slightly longer and taller than AJ Green and Gary Trent Jr., plus a fair bit bulkier. That added strength could help, as those two guards are routinely being outmuscled by bigger players. As we’ve seen, that’s put both them and the Bucks in foul trouble a lot. LaVine’s foul rate has never been particularly high, even in his more defensively-engaged Bulls years. With how much Green is being beaten on drives and how often he’s out of position, I don’t think LaVine would be a downgrade at this point.
If the Bucks can live with that—and I think they can—there are huge benefits to LaVine offensively. The Bucks’ offense has sunk to below league average with Giannis out, but it was trending that way anyway, in part due to their two-dimensionality. Plan A is to give one of the best players on earth the ball (a good plan!) and let him go to work inside, and Plan B has always been to shoot threes. That’s all well and good, but there needs to be a Plan C. LaVine can create his own shot from anywhere and is very efficient in doing so: he hasn’t posted a true shooting percentage below 60% in a full season since 2020. He’s far from a free-throw merchant, but he gets to the line more often than any Buck not named Giannis or Kuz. Also, he’s a long-established secondary ballhandler, which you can’t have enough of next to Giannis and whichever point guard is on the floor.
While you might chafe at nearly $50m for LaVine next year (assuming he picks up his option), remember that this is not the cap-strapped and tax-paying Bucks of previous years. They are currently $11.5m beneath the $187.9m luxury tax line, and adding LaVine plus a minimum-salaried 14th man would still keep them beneath it. Should he stick with Milwaukee in 2026–27, they’d have $188.6m committed to nine players, including five player options plus dead money owed to Damian Lillard and Vasilije Micić. That sounds like a lot, but the current tax projection is $201.7m, which would put the first apron at about $210.3m. So they’d have about $21.7m to fill four spots before any apron restrictions.
One of which may go to their 2026 first-round pick, who could make $4–5m depending on draft position. Vet minimums for three more players would then put them around $200m. They’d still have some room to give players like Trent or Kevin Porter Jr. raises if they opt out. However, the Bucks ducked the tax this season to begin resetting their repeater payor clock, and they’d need to be beneath the tax line next year again to complete that process. Finally, it’s worth noting that if they don’t to keep LaVine, his expiring salary on the player option would be large enough to acquire up to $61.4m in return.
Also from Scotto, the Bucks checked in on another former Blazers point guard over the offseason: Anfernee Simons. The 26-year-old is on an expiring deal and has only come off the Celtics’ bench this season after being traded to Beantown for Jrue Holiday back in July. After developing into a ~20 PPG scorer his last several years in Portland, his scoring is naturally down, dropping from 33–35 MPG to 25. But his per-36 numbers and shooting splits are as good or better as compared his best seasons, with the exception of assists. Never known as a defender, I find it unlikely that the Bucks are as into the idea of Simons right now, given the ascent of Ryan Rollins. But his $27.7m contract would be an easy one to acquire for Milwaukee: a one-for-one that sends out Kuzma works. Boston’s primary motivation here is to get beneath the tax line, and while they’re about $12m over right now, swapping Simons’ salary for Kuz’s $22.4m would help.
