The Milwaukee Bucks might benefit greatly from adding players with championship experience this offseason. It turns out, that is feasible if they make the intriguing trade decision to acquire Golden State Warriors center Kevon Looney.
Looney first entered the NBA as the Golden State Warriors 30th pick in the 2015 Draft. Unfortunately, a hip injury limited his first year in the league and prevented him from playing with the team. Once he recovered, the former UCLA big man got his feet wet by playing for the Santa Cruz Warriors, the team’s affiliate in the D League back then.
It would take Looney till the 2017–18 campaign to fully recover from injury. By then, the Warriors, led by All-Star forward Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson, had won their second straight championship. But after losing to the Toronto Raptors in the NBA Finals in 2019, their attempt to complete a three-peat was unsuccessful.
Stephen Curry and the Warriors won the championship game once more in 2022 after spending several years at the bottom. They did it by defeating the Boston Celtics. Since then, Looney has established himself as Golden State’s starting big man, averaging 5.0 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 1.6 assists a game on 58 percent shooting from the floor.
Similar to Looney, Bobby Portis, a big man with the Milwaukee Bucks, may soon finish his tenure as an All-Star forward under Doc Rivers and head coach Giannis Antetokounmpo. The front administration may take Jackson Gross’s trade proposal for Brew Hoop into consideration rather than letting him walk away for nothing at the end of his contract after the next season.
“Despite the offensive punch that Portis can bring on a nightly basis, his habit of tapping balls out to the perimeter instead of securing the rebound on both ends of the floor was headache-inducing to watch.
The Bucks make a three-team deal with the Golden State Warriors and Brooklyn Nets to get Kevon Looney for defense and his willpower to not turn into former Marquette volleyball All-American Allie Barber when it comes to rebounding. Looney is a strong rebounder and will provide much-needed defensive effort off the Bucks’ bench,”
