Portland Trail Blazers trading Damian Lillard to Milwaukee Bucks in 3-team deal

The Milwaukee Bucks shocked the NBA world on Wednesday when news broke that they had traded for longtime Portland Trail Blazers superstar Damian Lillard to pair up with Giannis Antetokounmpo.

That’s right, after months of rumors about Lillard potentially heading to Miami, or even Toronto, it’s an Eastern Conference team in green that ultimately swooped in and picked him up. The news came from NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski, who initially tweeted out:

“BREAKING: The Portland Trail Blazers are trading guard Damian Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks, sources tell ESPN.”

He added in a second tweet that it’s a three-team deal with the following details established so far:

“Lillard goes Milwaukee as part of a 3-team deal with Jrue Holiday, Deandre Ayton, Toumani Camara, a 2029 unprotected MIL 1st, and unprotected MIL swap rights in 2028 and 2030 to Blazers. Phoenix lands Jusuf Nurkic, Grayson Allen, Nassir Little and Keon Johnson.”

That’s a lot of commotion for one trade, so let’s try to translate Wojnarowski’s tweets into a logical list. According to him, here is what the involved teams each acquired and lost:

Acquired

• Bucks: Damian Lillard
• Trail Blazers: Jrue Holiday, DeAndre Ayton, Toumani Camara, 2028 and 2030 unprotected first round pick swaps with Bucks, 2029 Bucks unprotected first round pick
• Suns: Jusuf Nurkic, Grayson Allen, Nassir Little, Keon Johnson

Lost

• Bucks: Jrue Holiday, Grayson Allen, 2028 and 2030 picks swaps with Trail Blazers, 2029 unprotected first round pick
• Trail Blazers: Damian Lillard, Keon Johnson, Nassir Little, Jusuf Nurkic
• Suns: DeAndre Ayton, Toumani Camara

So let’s get even more into the weeds on this deal. Looking at it, the Bucks only gave up Jrue Holiday, Grayson Allen, one unprotected first rounder and two more first round swaps with Portland. Given what some of the NBA’s other top stars went for, that’s a rather low price.

But it’s the Phoenix side of this deal that really makes it work for Portland. Because the Trail Blazers gave away Lillard while getting back Jrue Holiday and only one guaranteed first round pick. But you throw in a young star like Ayton and the deal becomes a lot more fulfilling for Portland.

Meanwhile, Phoenix sort of took a loss here based on personnel alone. They gave up Ayton and Dayton rookie Toumani Camara to only get back Jusuf Nurkic and a trio of, at best, role players. Plus, Nurkic’s health has long been an issue for him as he’s missed significant time in each of the last four seasons.

Heck, it almost looks like Phoenix traded Ayton just to avoid his contract, since they’re already way into the luxury tax having to pay the obscene salaries of Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and now Bradley Beal.

For them, trading their other big money piece (Ayton) to grab some potential rotation guys (Johnson, Little, Allen, Nurkic) does make some team-building sense. After all, they desperately needed some cheaper depth and to get off one of those four long-term deals.

But wait, Nurkic isn’t cheap either, right? He’s not, but his salary is a better number than Phoenix had Ayton at. Plus, there was no way to trade Ayton without taking on a sum of contracts that was in the ballpark of Ayton’s salary (hence Nurkic plus the other guys). The Suns signed him to a deal that will pay him between $32-36 million the next three years while Nurkic is set to make roughly half of the Ayton figure each of those seasons.

There will be a lot of talk about Milwaukee getting Damian Lillard at a fairly low price given the current market for stars — and they did. However, you simply can’t overlook the favor Phoenix did by taking on Nurkic and some reserves in order to get Ayton off their books and over to Portland, who needed a young star like him to validate the trade.

The 2021 runner-ups did the 2021 NBA champions a big ol’ favor today.