If this goes badly, it'll be easy to say the Milwaukee Bucks should have started over. Instead of paying Damian Lillard $22.5 million per season for the next five years to not play for them, they could have paid him $54.1 million to rehabilitate from his torn Achilles in 2025-26, then let his contract expire in 2027 (or waited to offer him a normal buyout in the final season of his deal). Instead of replacing Brook Lopez with Myles Turner and signing/re-signing a bunch of veterans in hopes of fielding a competitive enough team that Giannis Antetokounmpo would not request a trade, they could have told Antetokounmpo that they'd spare him the trouble: You don't have to ask out. We know a trade is what's best for you and what's best for us. Your legacy is secure.

That, however, w

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