The Milwaukee Bucks shocked the NBA world on Tuesday morning when it was revealed they had waived veteran guard Damian Lillard to make room for free agent center Myles Turner, with whom the Indiana Pacers had failed to make a deal.
It was a bombshell development, considering (1) the team managed to lure Turner away from the only franchise he has ever known, and (2) they committed to paying Lillard stupid amounts of money over the next five years to make it happen. And although there was some praise for the "nerds" in Milwaukee who very likely concocted the plan, not everyone thinks it was a good idea.
Indeed, in a story from ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Jamal Collier, one rival league executive needed just one word to describe his stunned reaction to the deal.
"Reckless," this individual told Bontemps and Collier.
"That's a move you talk yourself into in the boardroom in July when you have nowhere else to go," added another exec, "and you turn a bad situation into a worse one. They're going to look at this in two years and say, 'What did we do?'"
Analyst Tim MacMahon was similarly down on the move (and the initial Dame trade) while speaking on Wednesday's episode of Get Up.
"This is a desperation move and it's an admission that the Damian Lillard trade was a complete disaster," he said.
Milwaukee acquired Damian Lillard in 2023 in hopes he could partner with superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo and turn the Bucks back into contenders. Of course, that simply did not happen. And although they now have Turner on their side, it still might not be enough to change their playoff chances, and they must now pay Dame a total of $113 million over the next five seasons as part of the stretch provision.
At the end of the day, you can see the logic in the Bucks' decision—cut the cord, get a star player to keep their other star happy, and deal with the financial consequences over time. But it seems as though the basketball-minded pundits out there—who, in fairness, are not running teams—will remain dumbfounded by the choice for the foreseeable future.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as NBA Exec Had Stunned One-Word Reaction to Bucks' Myles Turner-Damian Lillard Double Play.
