Who could the Lakers trade for if the Bucks have a fire sale?

The Milwaukee Bucks are off to a disastrous start this season, which has already caused trade buzzards to begin circling.

The Milwaukee Bucks stumbled out of the gate this season, winning just two of their first 10 games. While they have since righted the ship, going 11-3 since their slow start, a team coached by Doc Rivers with Darvin Ham on the staff is one that is always capable of a free fall at any moment.

That slow start naturally raised questions about Giannis Antetokounmpo’s long-term future. But before the Bucks even begin to consider trading the Greek Freak, they figure to explore all of their other trade options.

If the Bucks do decide to conduct a fire sale at some point, or even if they look to shuffle the deck, the Lakers could sniff around. Bleacher Report NBA insider Jake Fischer reported earlier this season that Bucks center Brook Lopez was “on the Lakers’ list of potential center targets” this past summer, and that they’re known to be pursuing an upgrade at center to play alongside Anthony Davis.

There’s just one problem: The Bucks are over the second apron, which means they can’t take back more salary than they send out via trade, nor can they aggregate contracts. The Lakers are $30,000 below the second apron, so they are allowed to aggregate contracts, but they likewise can’t take back more salary than they send out.

If the Bucks and Lakers wanted to conduct a two-team trade, they’d have to come up with an exact dollar-for-dollar match. Otherwise, any deal would have to include at least three teams.

So, is there a viable Lopez deal to be made? Could the Lakers land Khris Middleton or Bobby Portis instead? Is there a way for them to end up with the Greek Freak or Damian Lillard? Let’s briefly explore all of those possibilities.

Brook Lopez

From a salary perspective, it would be fairly easy for the Bucks and Lakers to come up with a workable deal for Lopez. The big issue would be finding a third team and figuring out the proper compensation on all sides.

Lopez is earning $23 million this year. The Lakers would likely use D’Angelo Russell’s $18.7 million contract as the main salary-filler in exchange, and they could either include Max Christie ($7.1 million) or two of Jalen Hood-Schifino ($3.9 million), Christian Wood ($3.0 million), Jaxson Hayes ($2.5 million) or Cam Reddish ($2.5 million) to reach the requisite amount of salary that they’d have to send out.

However, the Bucks presumably would want a big man in return if they’re giving up their starting center. They don’t have another true center on their roster, unless they’re willing to always run with Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis manning small-ball units. Neither Wood nor Hayes would likely cut it for them.

The Washington Wizards could help push a Lopez deal over the finish line for the Lakers and Bucks. They’re roughly $12.3 million below the first apron, so they can take back 125 percent of the salary that they send out. They could trade Jonas Valanciunas and Marvin Bagley III to the Bucks while taking back Russell, Hood-Schifino, Wood and draft compensation from the Lakers.

However, the Bucks would also presumably want draft compensation from the Lakers, as there’s no reason for them to give up Lopez for Valanciunas and Bagley otherwise. The Lakers might be willing to offload one first-rounder for Lopez, but it’s hard to imagine them giving up more than that, which is where this deal could break down.

Khris Middleton

Rather than move off Lopez, the Bucks could try to break Middleton’s $31.7 million contract into multiple role players. The Lakers and Bucks would still need to find a third team since the Lakers don’t have an exact dollar-for-dollar match for Middleton, but it wouldn’t require much extra help.

Russell and Jarred Vanderbilt ($10.7 million) combine to make roughly $29.4 million this season, leaving the Lakers only $2.3 million short of the matching salary they’d need to send out in a Middleton deal. They’d just need to find a team willing to take a free flier on any of Hood-Schifino, Wood, Hayes or Reddish.

The Wizards could serve as a facilitator here, too. If they took on Hood-Schifino, they could send Anthony Gill back to the Bucks to make the trade legal. They likely wouldn’t require much (if any?) draft compensation to do so, either.

The Bucks would likely want either the Lakers’ 2029 or 2031 first-round pick if they’re giving up Middleton. However, his $34.0 million player option for next season could decrease his trade value if he isn’t able to string together a long stretch of healthy play between now and the trade deadline.

The main problem is that this trade wouldn’t necessarily fix either the Bucks or Lakers’ biggest issues, which could be the deal-breaker.

Bobby Portis

Portis would be even easier to trade for than Lopez or Middleton. He’s making roughly $12.6 million this year, so the Lakers would just have to flip one of Vanderbilt or Gabe Vincent ($11.0 million) along with one of their small contracts to satisfy their salary-matching requirements. From there, it just becomes a matter of finding the third team.

Portis is the Bucks’ third-leading scorer (!) and their primary backup center. Like with any Lopez deal, they would presumably want a big man in return for Portis to help back up Lopez. Unless they believe Vanderbilt could serve as a small-ball center alongside Antetokounmpo — or they’re willing to put Wood or Hayes in those roles — that’s where this trade could run into problems.

Since the Bucks can’t aggregate contracts, they couldn’t take Vanderbilt and Wood or Hayes and then send Portis to the Lakers and one of their smaller contracts (such as MarJon Beauchamp) to a third team. They might have to find a third team that’s willing to take on either Vanderbilt or Vincent and send back another big man to go with Wood or Hayes.

The Utah Jazz could help there. They could package Drew Eubanks with Svi Mykhailiuk to send to the Bucks while taking on Vanderbilt (along with perhaps a second-round pick from the Lakers).

This might just be shuffling deck chairs for the Lakers and Bucks, but frameworks along these lines would be fairly easy to construct.

Damian Lillard

Before the Bucks pull the trigger on a Giannis trade, they’ll presumably explore every other possibility first. That likely includes trading Damian Lillard, whom they acquired last offseason for Jrue Holiday, Grayson Allen, a first-round pick and two first-round swaps.

Matching salaries for Lillard’s $48.8 million contract would be the Lakers’ biggest challenge. Unless they were willing to include LeBron James ($48.7 million) or Anthony Davis ($43.2 million) — which would defeat the purpose of trading for Lillard in the first place — they would almost have to include Russell, Rui Hachimura ($17.0 million) and Austin Reaves ($13.0 million) both from a salary-matching and trade-value perspective.

From there, it becomes a matter of finding a third team that would be willing to take those contracts and send back enough salary to the Bucks.

The Houston Rockets could make sense in that regard. They have Fred VanVleet’s $42.8 million expiring contract to dangle, which could serve as the majority of their salary-filler. From there, they could include any of Aaron Holiday ($4.7 million), Tari Eason ($3.7 million) or Cam Whitmore ($3.4 million) to make the deal legal from a salary perspective.

The Bucks likely wouldn’t flip Dame for VanVleet and one of Eason or Whitmore unless the Lakers sweetened the pot with significant draft capital, though. And would it be worth giving up three rotation players in Russell, Hachimura and Reaves for Lillard, making them perilously top-heavy?

The Lakers might be tempted to explore that option, but it’s hard to find a deal that makes sense for both them and the Bucks here.

Giannis Antetokounmpo

Last but not least… is there any chance the Lakers could land the Greek Freak if the Bucks decide to trade him? Don’t count on it.

For one, roughly 28 other teams will also be placing calls to the Bucks in that scenario. The Lakers have two first-round picks and two first-round pick swaps that they can offer in any trade, but they can’t hold a candle to the offers that teams such as the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs can put together.

Much like with Lillard, matching salaries for Antetokoumpo would be a challenge. Even if they were willing to include Russell, Hachimura and Reaves as the main salary-matching contracts, that’s nowhere close to what the Bucks would want for Giannis from a trade-value perspective.

File this in the no-way-in-hell-this-happens department, but… it is worth noting that both Antetokounmpo and LeBron make within $100,000 of one another. The Lakers would have to include one additional minimum contract — a package deal of LeKing and Bronny James? — and they’d still need to find a third team because of the Bucks’ salary-matching restrictions, but that might be their easiest path to Giannis.

However, the Bucks should have no interest in trading their 30-year-old megastar for a soon-to-be 40-year-old who is openly flirting with retirement. They’d likely have to find a third team that was willing to give up multiple draft picks and high-upside prospects for LeBron and Bronny, which the Lakers would then re-route to Milwaukee.

The Golden State Warriors could make sense in that regard, although it’s hard to come up with a workable framework given all three teams’ salary-matching restrictions. The Warriors are less than $550,000 under the first apron, so they can’t take back much more salary than they send out.

Would the Rockets entertain that type of win-now consolidation trade if it only cost them Reed Sheppard and Jabari Smith Jr., though?

If we’re being honest, probably not. They’d likely rather just acquire Antetokounmpo for themselves. But if the Greek Freak wanted to force his way to L.A., it is technically feasible. It just might cost LeBron.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Salary Swish and salary-cap information via RealGM.