{"id":122050,"date":"2025-02-05T12:01:49","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T17:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=122050"},"modified":"2025-02-05T12:01:49","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T17:01:49","slug":"bucks-and-wizards-trade-former-nba-champions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/05\/bucks-and-wizards-trade-former-nba-champions\/","title":{"rendered":"Bucks And Wizards Trade Former NBA Champions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/05\/thunder-kevin-durant-trade-title-chances\/\" target=\"_self\">2025 NBA trade deadline<\/a> continues to heat up! <\/span><a  href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/1887157913732485366\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shams Charania just broke<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the news that the Milwaukee Bucks are trading <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/middlkh01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Khris Middleton<\/a>, <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/johnsaj01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">AJ Johnson<\/a>, and a pick swap to the Washington Wizards for <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/k\/kuzmaky01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kyle Kuzma<\/a>, <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/baldwpa01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Patrick Baldwin Jr.<\/a>, and second-round draft compensation. On paper, it looks like this trade is an opportunity for the Bucks to get younger while the Wizards pick up some veteran leadership, draft compensation, and a young guard in AJ Johnson. Let\u2019s take a deeper look at this Bucks Wizards trade.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Breaking: The Milwaukee Bucks are trading Khris Middleton, AJ Johnson and a pick swap to the Washington Wizards for Kyle Kuzma, Patrick Baldwin Jr. and second-round draft compensation, sources tell ESPN. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/hCOzqqqUXE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/hCOzqqqUXE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/1887157913732485366?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 5, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Bucks And Wizards Trade Former NBA Champions<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3><strong>Bucks Land Kuzma\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The biggest name in this trade is likely Kuzma. He has been wasting away in Washington and has <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/26\/kyle-kuzma-plea-wizards-trade\/\" target=\"_self\">made it clear<\/a> that he is looking to make his way to a title contender. He now gets that opportunity. Kuzma is getting to team up with <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/antetgi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a> and <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/l\/lillada01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Damian Lillard<\/a> for a chance at competing once again for a title.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For the Bucks to really contend with Kuzma on the roster, he is going to need to step up his game. Kuzma\u2019s stats have fallen off a cliff this season, going from 22.2 points per game last year to only 15.2 points a game this year. He is shooting only 28.1% from the three-point line this year. Hopefully, for the Bucks, his play was partly due to his discontent in Washington. Kuzma will give the Bucks more frontcourt size allowing them to optimize lineups where Giannis plays the five.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Bucks Wizards Trade Brings Middleton to Washington<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Wizards have gotten rid of a player who didn\u2019t want to be there and picked up a championship veteran and another exciting young player. Middleton has been recovering from injury this season and although hasn\u2019t put up the same production as the last couple of seasons, is playing fairly efficient basketball. Middleton is shooting 40.7% from three, a skill any team would be happy to have.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Wizards are also picking up AJ Johnson, a rookie who will now probably have an opportunity to get some more opportunities on a rebuilding squad. Johnson has only played in seven games for the Bucks this season. He fits the Wizards timeline much better than Milwaukee&#8217;s and could become a solid player. The Wizards also acquired a pick swap which could ultimately benefit them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo credit: \u00a9 Geoff Burke-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2025 NBA trade deadline continues to heat up! Shams Charania just broke the news that the Milwaukee Bucks are trading Khris Middleton, AJ Johnson, and a pick swap to the Washington Wizards for Kyle Kuzma, Patrick Baldwin Jr., and second-round draft compensation. On paper, it looks like this trade is an opportunity for the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5284,"featured_media":122067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_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":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,15,62,4721,18],"tags":[49598,306,324,1128,4655],"class_list":["post-122050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-bucks","category-nba","category-trade-rumors","category-wizards","tag-aj-johnson","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","tag-khris-middleton","tag-kyle-kuzma","tag-patrick-baldwin-jr"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122050","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\/5284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122050"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122068,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122050\/revisions\/122068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}