{"id":112521,"date":"2024-12-16T14:57:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-16T19:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=112521"},"modified":"2024-12-16T14:57:00","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T19:57:00","slug":"milwaukee-bucks-nearly-traded-bobby-portis-grant-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/12\/16\/milwaukee-bucks-nearly-traded-bobby-portis-grant-williams\/","title":{"rendered":"Milwaukee Bucks Nearly Traded for Past NBA Finals Participant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last season, the Milwaukee Bucks<\/a> made just two trades, but neither of them moved the needle too much. They landed Patrick Beverley<\/a> from the Philadelphia 76ers<\/a> and sent Robin Lopez<\/a> to the Sacramento Kings<\/a>. However, according to recent reports, the Bucks nearly made another trade that would have made a significant change to their rotation.<\/p>\n

According to ESPN’s Bobby Marks<\/a>, the Bucks nearly traded Bobby Portis<\/a> to the Dallas Mavericks<\/a> for Grant Williams<\/a>. Marks also reported that there was “a deal in place,” but Milwaukee ultimately opted against the trade. Instead, the Mavericks traded Williams to the Charlotte Hornets<\/a> in exchange for P.J. Washington<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sources confirmed to ESPN that Milwaukee had a deal in place last season to send Portis to Dallas for Grant Williams. The Bucks eventually passed and Williams was sent to the Charlotte Hornets for PJ Washington.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Milwaukee Bucks Nearly Traded Bobby Portis for Grant Williams<\/h2>\n

Bobby Portis is a Milwaukee Bucks Trade Candidate Again<\/h3>\n

Marks named Portis as a player to watch ahead of February’s trade deadline. He mentioned the Bucks’ lack of tradable assets as a big reason the team could decide to move on from Arkansas native. Portis is also potentially in the midst of a contract year. The 29-year-old has a $13.4 million player option for the 2025-26 NBA season.<\/p>\n

Because Milwaukee is limited in tradable contracts and draft assets (it can trade only its 2031 first-round pick), expect Portis’ name to resurface again. Portis is averaging 13.8 points this season but has been an inconsistent shooter. He scored a combined 45 points on 7-for-8 from 3 in wins against Brooklyn and Orlando in early December. The two games prior, Portis shot 0-for-6 from deep<\/p>\n

Nearly 80% of the Bucks’ payroll is tied up in four players (Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a>, Damian Lillard<\/a>, Khris Middleton<\/a> and Brook Lopez<\/a>). As a result, Milwaukee is bottom-heavy in salary with 11 players, starting with Portis, earning $12.6 million or less in salary.<\/p>\n

The Bucks will need to be creative upgrading the roster using Portis’ salary. They are not allowed to take back more salary because they are $6.5 million over the first apron and cannot aggregate Portis’ salary with another player if the post-transactional team salary leaves them over the second apron.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In each of the last two seasons, Portis finished third in Sixth Man of the Year voting. This season, he is putting up another solid campaign. Through 24 games (and only 1 start), he is averaging 13.1 points, 7.7 rebounds, and 1.7 assists. Portis is also shooting 47.8% from the field and 36.7% from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n

The Last Word<\/h3>\n

After a slow start to the season, the Bucks have turned things around. Milwaukee currently owns a 14-11 record and sits as the No. 6 seed in the Eastern Conference. Additionally, they have advanced to the final round of the NBA Cup and will take on the Oklahoma City Thunder.<\/p>\n

Though they are on a bit of a hot streak, the Bucks are far from a perfect team. Even in a lackluster Eastern Conference, the Bucks will have a hard time becoming title favorites again as long as the Boston Celtics<\/a> and Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> keep going at their pace. The trade deadline is still a couple of months away, but the Bucks are a team to monitor until then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last season, the Milwaukee Bucks made just two trades, but neither of them moved the needle too much. They landed Patrick Beverley from the Philadelphia 76ers and sent Robin Lopez to the Sacramento Kings. However, according to recent reports, the Bucks nearly made another trade that would have made a significant change to their rotation. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4631,"featured_media":102318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,2,15,62,3,4721],"tags":[1255,1491],"class_list":["post-112521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-featured","category-bucks","category-nba","category-news","category-trade-rumors","tag-bobby-portis","tag-grant-williams"],"modified_by":"Elie Deglaoui","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112521"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112526,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112521\/revisions\/112526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}