Damian Lillard trade winners and losers: Bucks, Blazers up; Heat, Suns down

The biggest domino of the NBA offseason finally fell Wednesday, when the Portland Trail Blazers agreed to trade all-star guard Damian Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks in a three-team deal with the Phoenix Suns.

In exchange for Lillard, Portland will receive guard Jrue Holiday, an unprotected 2029 first-round draft pick and first-round pick swaps in 2028 and 2030 from Milwaukee along with center Deandre Ayton and forward Toumani Camara from Phoenix. The Suns will receive center Jusuf Nurkic and forwards Nassir Little and Keon Johnson from the Blazers along with guard Grayson Allen from the Bucks.

This was a relatively unexpected and layered swap involving three teams that ended last season on a sour note. For Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Bucks, who endured a humbling first-round exit against the Miami Heat last spring, the trade provides a jolt to their title hopes. For the Blazers, who have suffered through two straight tanking campaigns, the divorce from Lillard represents a fresh start with 2023 lottery pick Scoot Henderson. For the Suns, who were steamrolled by the Denver Nuggets in the second round, moving on from Ayton represents a cost-cutting maneuver that completes a dramatic offseason overhaul.

To further sort through the implications from a blockbuster deal that reshaped the Eastern Conference’s power balance, let’s run through its various winners and losers.

Needless to say, the breeze on Milwaukee’s Bradford Beach will hit a little bit different in January than it would have on South Beach. After Lillard issued a trade request in July, his representatives pulled out all the stops to steer him toward the Heat, which was fresh off a Finals trip and in need of backcourt firepower. Alas, that power play was only partially successful: Lillard landed on a top Eastern Conference contender but will need to swap out swimsuits for puffy coats.

Lillard wasted no time saying he was “excited” about the end result, and Milwaukee could very well prove to be a better basketball fit for him than Miami. Antetokounmpo not only will be the best player with whom Lillard has ever played in the NBA, but he is also significantly younger and more decorated than Heat forward Jimmy Butler.

In recent years, the Blazers were held back by subpar front lines that couldn’t defend at an elite level. Lillard will now have cover from one of the NBA’s most physical and imposing frontcourt groups: Antetokounmpo, Brook Lopez and Bobby Portis. Similarly, Milwaukee’s limited backcourt scoring has contributed to its playoff shortcomings following its 2021 title run. Lillard is ideally suited to addressing that weakness, and his pairing with Antetokounmpo gives the Bucks two of the NBA’s top five scorers from last season.

Look for Lillard to emerge as the top point guard in the East after spending the first 11 years of his career playing in a West that’s loaded with premier backcourt talent. The chief risk for Lillard lies in Antetokounmpo’s uncertain future, and this trade is no guarantee that the two-time MVP will sign a contract extension with Milwaukee.

That said, Lillard accomplished his main goal of leaving the wayward Blazers for a team that will give him a far better shot at a championship. He didn’t get everything he wanted, but he probably couldn’t have done any better.

The casuals won’t be addressed but the trailblazers fans and city of Portland that I love truly will be … and they will be addressed truthfully. Stay tuned

Excited for my next chapter! @Bucks ��️

— Damian Lillard (@Dame_Lillard) September 27, 2023

Months of chatter linking Lillard to Miami went unfulfilled in borderline disastrous fashion for the reigning Eastern Conference champions. The Heat lost Max Strus and Gabe Vincent in free agency this summer, and it made no major roster additions in the face of a possible “Big Three” core featuring Butler, Lillard and Bam Adebayo.

Now that no deal has developed, Miami will enter camp relying on Tyler Herro, who is returning from a hand injury, and aging veterans such as Kyle Lowry and Kevin Love. On paper, the Heat looks a lot more like a No. 8 seed — the same as last season — than a top-shelf title contender.

Yet this missed opportunity won’t necessarily develop into a franchise-altering crisis. Joel Embiid is one of several high-profile players who could theoretically be looking to change teams next summer, and Miami will maintain its reputation as a leading superstar landing pad regardless of how this season goes.

The Bucks were able to sneak into the Lillard sweepstakes because most outside observers simply didn’t believe they had enough trade assets to land a seven-time all-star who averaged 32.2 points, 4.8 rebounds and 7.3 assists last season.

With Antetokounmpo expecting Milwaukee to do everything in its power to compete for titles, this trade represents a show of good faith by a franchise to its franchise player. Antetokounmpo and Lillard are aligned in their desire to win at all costs, and the Bucks’ 2020 trade for Holiday is proof that a bold maneuver can pay off with a title.

By including Phoenix in this deal, Milwaukee escaped the burden of needing to provide Portland with a centerpiece talent in the trade package. This was a crucial development, because the Bucks had no young stars to offer and had already tapped into their cache of future draft picks during previous trades.

Parting with Holiday, Allen, a first-round pick and two first-round pick swaps to land Lillard means Milwaukee paid less than the Minnesota Timberwolves did for Rudy Gobert and the Cleveland Cavaliers did for Donovan Mitchell last summer. Given Lillard’s talent and Antetokounmpo’s urgency, that’s a price worth paying without thinking twice.

The puzzling decision to dump Ayton to Portland for center Jusuf Nurkic should be viewed as collateral damage from Phoenix’s massive bet on Bradley Beal. Before this trade, the Suns were set to pay Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Beal and Ayton more than $161 million this season when the salary cap was set at $136 million.

Their financial commitment to those four players was only going to grow in subsequent seasons, making it borderline impossible for their front office to fill out a capable bench. Nurkic ($16.8 million) will make roughly half as much money as Ayton ($32.5 million) this season, and every bit of those savings will help on a roster that’s this top-heavy.

The big problem, though, is that the Suns lacked enough defense and size to compete with Denver last season, and now it just took a meaningful step back at the center position. Nurkic, 29, has dealt with persistent injury issues while playing an average of 38 games per season over the past four years, and he has never played in a second-round playoff game during his nine-year career.

Portland’s gradual decline since reaching the 2019 Western Conference finals put it in a very tricky spot with Lillard, the franchise’s all-time leading scorer and one of the most popular Blazers of all time. Trading Lillard meant conceding defeat and ending an era in painful fashion. Keeping him meant continuing a run of sub-mediocrity that seemingly left all parties frustrated and out of solutions.

Blazers General Manager Joe Cronin bit the bullet and traded Lillard, resisting Miami’s pushy overtures in favor of a patient approach. He was rewarded with a respectable package that beat the Heat’s best reported offers while also offloading Nurkic’s contract. The Blazers have finally picked a direction after years of indecision and will get to start this season fresh, free from the noxious cloud of trade rumors and playoff expectations. Henderson, the No. 3 pick in June’s draft, will get the car keys, Ayton will get a featured role, and youngsters Anfernee Simons and Shaedon Sharpe will get every chance to reach their full potential.

Cronin succeeded in landing a centerpiece headliner in Ayton, got draft assets that could prove to be extraordinarily valuable from Milwaukee and can shop Holiday to aspiring contenders to acquire additional draft capital. Portland’s rebuilding effort could also be boosted by a trade of veteran forward Jerami Grant, who signed a five-year contract this summer, somewhere down the line. In other words, Lillard’s departure didn’t leave the Blazers empty-handed.

How, exactly, this trade ages will be largely determined by Ayton, and that should be a scary proposition for Portland. After Phoenix selected him over Luka Doncic, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Trae Young with the top pick in the 2018 draft, Ayton’s five-year run with the Suns was mostly disappointing.

The athletic center peaked during the Suns’ 2021 run to the Finals with a stellar conference semifinal showing against the Nuggets, but Ayton was less effective in the 2022 and 2023 playoffs and he butted heads repeatedly with former coach Monty Williams. At issue: Ayton seemed to want a greater offensive role, and the Suns seemed to want more consistent effort on the defensive end.

While Ayton should enjoy a much larger role in Portland, he must prove he can be a driver of wins. He will also need to adjust to life with young guards such as Henderson and Simons rather than Chris Paul, a first-ballot Hall of Famer who helped pull quality contributions out of him in Phoenix. If Ayton can’t break through into a perennial all-star, Blazermaniacs could be in for a long wait to return to playoff relevance.

When Durant landed with the Suns in February, he was seemingly joining a steady winner with a proven core, a thoughtful coach and a rich and ambitious new owner in Mat Ishbia. So much has changed in less than eight months. Williams was fired. Chris Paul was traded. Ayton was traded. Cameron Payne, Jock Landale and Torrey Craig are among the role players who have found new homes.

That leaves Durant, Booker and Beal — three talented scorers — with a supporting cast that lacks a distribution-minded point guard, a proven center and sufficient wing defenders. Phoenix’s offense should be highly entertaining this season, but its rotation appears to lack the substance necessary for a true title chase.

The 19-year-old Henderson, who spent the past two seasons with the G League Ignite, handled the Lillard trade circus with impressive maturity. His reward: getting to run his own team from Day One, rather than backing up Lillard or being forced out of position. Henderson has the size, strength, vision and charisma to be a franchise point guard, and now he has the opportunity, too.

Holiday’s contributions as an elite defender and tertiary scorer were crucial throughout Milwaukee’s 2021 title run. The Bucks don’t beat the Brooklyn Nets in the second round or the Suns in the Finals without him. In a reminder of the NBA’s cutthroat nature, Holiday told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this week that he was a “Buck for life” and that he “[didn’t] want to play for any other team.”

Milwaukee’s decision to move on was probably motivated by its average offensive efficiency during the 2022-23 season and Holiday’s struggles to score efficiently during the past two playoff runs. The Bucks are surely aware that they have no way to replace his hard-nosed, high-IQ defense, but they’re betting Lillard’s scoring punch can paper over that newfound hole.

The best-case scenario for Holiday — and all NBA observers, frankly — is that Portland reroutes him to another contender. Miami could use him with Lowry fading. Boston could use him after the Marcus Smart trade. Philadelphia could use him with James Harden’s future up in the air. Brooklyn, Toronto and Chicago would all benefit from his presence.

Holiday’s $36.8 million contract and status as a 2024 free agent could complicate trade talks, but there’s no good reason for his story to end in Portland.