LOS ANGELES — When Giannis Antetokounmpo made his way from the team hotel to the bus waiting to take the Bucks to shootaround on Friday morning, he experienced a slight detour.
“I woke up 20 minutes before the bus,” Antetokounmpo said. “I was going to get into the bus and I saw Jordan (Nwora) dapping people up and I tried to like kind of avoid him and he was looking in my eyes and I was like, ‘It’s too early for these games, man. Let me go to my seat.’ And he was like, ‘I’m not going to be with the team.'”
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Following the Bucks’ 115-106 victory over the Lakers on Thursday night, Antetokounmpo told reporters that he doesn’t really keep up with the activity of trade deadline day and instead relies on teammates and people around the team to inform him of what has happened. But while he might not have been ready for a series of goodbyes before shootaround, Antetokounmpo understands how the league works.
This is his 10th NBA season, and this is the reality of trade deadline day on a contending team with Jon Horst as general manager. Every year, Horst has tried to make a move to improve the Bucks, and on Thursday, after a long drawn-out process, he finally got his man.
Since the moment Jae Crowder informed the Phoenix Suns he didn’t want to play for them this season, the Bucks have been interested in adding the 32-year-old forward. The Bucks have been connected to Crowder since before the start of the season, when Crowder and the Suns agreed to allow him to stay away from the team as they tried to find a suitable trade partner. By the time the Bucks were finally able to trade for Crowder on Thursday, they were negotiating with a different team as Crowder was part of the league-changing deal that sent Kevin Durant to the Suns and Crowder over to the Nets.
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“It wasn’t the only thing we’ve been working on for months (laughs), but it was something we’ve been working on for a long time,” Horst told reporters in a hallway of crypto.com Arena, following Thursday’s win. “It was one of the most incredible, kind of challenging, pursuits of a player I’ve ever been a part of, to be honest with you.
“Different iterations and different things that happened. The Phoenix situation, and then all of a sudden he goes to a different team, and then it’s kind of back to the market. It was challenging. It was fun, tiring. We were working on a bunch of other things. It’s our job to do that, and you keep your board clean, you keep trying to figure out something you can do, and this is something we felt really great about being able to do, if we could do it, and we got it.”
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In the end, the Bucks gave up five second-round picks to get the deal done in what ended up being a four-team trade that also saw the team move George Hill, Serge Ibaka and Nwora to the Pacers. But they managed to keep all of their rotation players out of the deal and did not surrender any first-round picks. While a trade for a player who could potentially get important playoff minutes often forces teams to deal with losing an impact player, the Bucks managed to add such a player while keeping their entire core untouched.
“Organizationally, we feel like at the top of our group, whether it’s the top nine or 10, is incredibly strong and solid and we really didn’t want to touch that, if possible,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said after the game. “So, to keep that group intact, we feel like we made a great add. We’ll have to figure out how it all fits together. Having options and having flexibility, there’s still 25 more games in the regular season and a lot of playoff basketball. You need everything you can if you want to be the last team standing, and we feel like adding Jae helps us in that direction.”
The Bucks managed to get one of the players they wanted at the trade deadline, but an important question remains: What can Crowder actually do on the floor?
Because the Suns allowed Crowder to stay away from the team while they looked for a trade, Crowder has not played in an NBA game since Phoenix lost to the Mavericks in Game 7 of their second-round playoff series on May 15, 2022.
“So, we got permission to spend time with him, and (Bucks assistant GM) Milt (Newton) and I went and worked him out and spent time with him in Atlanta. Had lunch with him,” Horst told reporters. “Great physical shape. He’s healthy. Mentally, physically, I think everything in a really good spot.
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“Hasn’t played much five-on-five for a while, so I think we need to access that and really see what that looks like. And I think there is some sort of ramp-up period. We are not in a rush. We have to be careful and safe with it, but unbelievable physical condition. Energy-wise, (he’s) super excited about playing, super excited about playing for us. I just think he’s ready to win, ready to be a part of something big. He’s ready to compete and play, so we’ll just kind of have to just stay focused on that and not push him too quick. But for whatever he’s had the ability to do for however many months it’s been, he’s in really great shape.”
While Horst and the Bucks may feel good about what Crowder can do physically, there is more to be considered. Crowder has not revealed exactly why he did not want to continue playing with the Suns. There have been reports that suggested he was upset with a role coming off the bench behind Cam Johnson, the Suns’ 26-year-old forward, and others that suggested Crowder might have been upset about potential contract extension talks, but he has never cleared up exactly what led to him not wanting to continue playing for the Suns.
“That’s part of very direct conversations with him, very honest conversations with his agency. You do your work, you get the stories and then you figure it out together,” Horst said. “We did all the work. I’m not going to get into it — that’s their story. For us, we’re really excited, very comfortable to have him. But yeah, we spent a ton of time figuring out that piece as well because that’s the first thing. You’re like, so what happened, right? You’re really good. They’re really good. What happened? Obviously, we’re very comfortable with that.”
Crowder will get the opportunity to answer those questions when he gets to Milwaukee and joins the team, but on Thursday, his new Bucks teammates focused on what they know about Crowder, and that is playing against him on the floor. Most of the team played against him in the 2021 NBA Finals, and those games left an impression.
“He knows how to win. He knows how to play in the playoffs,” Antetokounmpo said. “He’s been in the finals three, four times in his career. He competes. He makes shots. He brings toughness. We need guys like him. We need somebody that’s going to bring toughness for us because me, Khris and Jrue, we don’t say much. We just do our jobs.
“So we need somebody, who when you walk down the alley and you’re going to face the bullies and they kind of run the other way, you think they’re running the other way because of you, but it’s because of the guy behind you. For us, that was P.J. (Tucker) two years ago. He was the one that when you played with P.J., you kind of had that different swag, you felt like you were a bully too. I feel like Jae brings that toughness, that edge to our team. I’m very excited to play with him. I don’t know when he’s going to join us. I don’t know the logistics, but I’m excited to see him. I’m excited to play with him.”
As Horst admitted, the Bucks were looking for “a big, physical wing defender with an ability to make shots,” and that is what they believe they found in Crowder. Multiple Bucks players brought up Crowder’s toughness after Thursday’s game in Los Angeles, which was impressed upon them in the 2021 finals, and his ability to defend. While the Bucks could have potentially gone after a shooter or an offensive creator, Horst doubled down on the Bucks’ identity as a defense-first team with Crowder.
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Bucks point guard Jrue Holiday pointed to Crowder’s potential ability to take on the toughest assignments on the wing as something that could end up being important come playoff time. While Holiday relishes taking on the toughest assignments, having more players who can do it makes his life easier.
“It means a lot,” Holiday said. “That’s why I love Wes. I think (Wesley Matthews) is one of those people that takes on that challenge as well and to have more guys like that, that can switch one through four, one through five, hard-nosed, tough guys who can also score on the other end and space the floor and shoot, I’ll take it. So I think us adding Jae is really big for us.
“I love it. I thought it was great. I also think, just competing against him in the finals, knowing what he did there, knowing how he plays and all that, we feel like he hits our team really, really well. I, personally, think he fits our team really well. He’s one of those hard-nosed guys, doesn’t take anything from anybody, doesn’t take any bull from anybody, so definitely looking forward to starting playing with him.”
Budenholzer and Horst seemed to think it was unlikely for Crowder to be available for Friday’s game against the Clippers in Los Angeles, so Crowder might not end up making his Bucks debut until next week. But his new teammates seemed excited to start the process. In the meantime though, Horst’s work is not done.
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By trading three players (and five draft picks) for Crowder, Horst opened up two roster spots. He will need to fill at least one in the next two weeks to satisfy the NBA’s roster requirements, and the market for players who have been waived continues to grow. With Hill, the team’s backup point guard, heading to Indiana in the deal, the Bucks’ biggest hole on the roster is point guard. But they could go in a different direction if they feel like Jevon Carter has proven himself enough this season or Khris Middleton and Joe Ingles can handle the extra point guard responsibilities in the postseason.
With a nine-game winning streak still alive and the player the Bucks had targeted for months on their roster, the sun is shining extra bright in Los Angeles this Friday. But the work remaining in the rest of the season is not far away as the Boston Celtics, the Eastern Conference’s other title contender, comes to Milwaukee on Tuesday.
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(Photo of Jae Crowder: Barry Gossage / NBAE via Getty Images)
