Wizards Could Benefit Long-Term from Catastrophe in Milwaukee

The Bucks, once regarded as one of the better organizations for their whipping a contending team into place around multiple-time MVP-winner Giannis Antetokounmpo and winning it all in 2020-21, have fully sunk to league-wide laughingstock status.

Their last few years of whiffing on draft picks and premature playoff exits came to a head earlier this year, when they swung on a shake-up trade to reawaken their title aspirations. In an attempt to provide Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard with a third scorer, they dealt a hefty package to Washington in exchange for Kyle Kuzma, who's done little to warrant the amount they gave up for him.

Khris Middleton, a longtime Buck with a respectable playoff pedigree as a perimeter creator and closer, has been sorely missed with the Bucks falling within a game of elimination to the Indiana Pacers. AJ Johnson, a rookie who went on to have some promising moments on the tanking Wizards, would be a nice piece to have on a Milwaukee team with no future prospects to entice their stars with.

Rumors have already begun taking form that this may be the year Antetokounmpo raises the stakes on his front office having spent the last couple of disappointing seasons by making it clear that he's in the business of winning, even if that takes him from Wisconsin.

This tricky situation makes the trade that much more damning when we examine the final detail of the exchange, one that's worth returning to now. Along with the much-missed veteran and the up-and-coming draftee, the Bucks also dealt a 2028 pick swap to the Wizards, a pivotal piece of draft capital with Milwaukee's near-future looking as precarious as ever.

This small detail enables Washington to play around with a pick that was already swapped with Portland, allowing the Wizards to swap their own 2028 first-round position with the lesser option between Portland or Milwaukee that year.

This means that there exists a scenario in which the Wizards can cash in on a Bucks team that may or may not have Giannis at that point, which is far from a guarantee given their bleak future, especially after Shams Charania announced that the 35-year-old Lillard tore his Achilles tendon in last night's Game 4 loss.

All this future mobility cost was Kuzma, who's hurt the Bucks more than he's helped them since joining, and a Wizards second-round pick due for this summer, which could prove much less valuable than a potential additional first-round pick in three years.