A Kristaps Porziņģis Trade With the Milwaukee Bucks Would Return a Guard, Not a Center

The Milwaukee Bucks could not take Kristaps Porziņģis off Golden State’s books for Jericho Sims even if they wanted to. Sending out Sims’s $2,801,346 lets Milwaukee absorb $5,852,692 in return, and Porziņģis makes $19,512,195 — a shortfall of $13,659,503 that no amount of willingness closes.

The Athletic reported that the Warriors contacted Milwaukee about a Porziņģis deal and that the Bucks are not believed to be interested. Danny Emerman of The San Francisco Standard listed Milwaukee’s centers as Myles Turner, Kel’el Ware and Sims, which is why a rebuilding team carrying three of them keeps surfacing as the obvious home for the contract Golden State has stopped paying. The reluctance is real. It is also beside the point.

Jericho Sims and Kel’el Ware Are Out of Range

Milwaukee is hard-capped at the first apron, having used the expanded traded player exception to acquire Caris LeVert, per Hoops Rumors’ list of hard-capped teams. Its $191,358,866 payroll sits below that apron of $209,015,000, which puts the Bucks in the expanded salary-matching brackets rather than the dollar-for-dollar rule.

For a team under the first apron sending out $7.5 million or less, the ceiling is 200% of outgoing salary plus $250,000. On Sims that is the $5,852,692 above. Ware’s $4,654,920 raises it to $9,559,840, still $9,952,355 short of Porziņģis. To absorb him at all Milwaukee has to send out eight figures, which means Tyler Herro, Turner, Kyle Kuzma, Gary Trent Jr. or LeVert — not the two cheap centers everyone keeps pointing at.

Myles Turner Fails on the Other Side

Turner is the only Bucks center on enough money, and he fails in the opposite direction. Golden State’s $219,763,627 payroll sits above the first apron, where a team may take back only 100% of what it sends out. Porziņģis’s $19,512,195 buys exactly $19,512,195, and Turner makes $26,584,164 — $7,071,969 too much.

Golden State can still aggregate, because that restriction binds only teams over the second apron and the Warriors are $1,922,373 under it. Exactly one other contract closes the gap on its own: Moses Moody’s $12,500,000. Al Horford’s $6,822,000 leaves them $249,969 short, and Moody is out until December or January, per Anthony Slater of ESPN. That is the arithmetic behind a Turner package that works everywhere except Milwaukee.

The Only Legal Return From Milwaukee Is a Guard

One Bucks salary clears both sides. LeVert’s $14,809,200 fits under Golden State’s $19,512,195 ceiling, and sending it out drops Milwaukee into the middle bracket, where it can take back its outgoing salary plus roughly $7.5 million — enough for Porziņģis with room left over. The trade is legal. It is also not a center.

Golden State should pass. The whole value of this contract is that it behaves like an expiring one: the $20,487,805 for 2027-28 is a player option, per Hoops Rumors, and only $3 million of it is guaranteed, per Slater. Spending that on a guard would leave the Warriors at $215,060,632, still above the first apron, and still asking Draymond Green, at 36, to play center when Charles Bassey could take those minutes instead. Clearing Porziņģis outright drops the payroll to $200,251,432 and under the apron, which Slater notes is where the real flexibility is.

Two things here are not knowable. Whether Milwaukee would entertain any version of this is the Bucks’ business, and no outlet has reported a price in draft capital — Slater wrote that most teams see Porziņģis as a negative asset, which suggests any picks would move toward Milwaukee rather than away from it.

So the Bucks are not a center market for Golden State. They are a guard market, and the Warriors have guards. The contract is worth more unspent, and there is until February to find a team below the first apron with a center earning between about $12 million and $19.5 million — which describes neither Sims nor Ware, and never did.

Sources: reporting from The Athletic, Danny Emerman of The San Francisco Standard and Anthony Slater of ESPN. Contract figures and payroll totals via Basketball-Reference; cap, apron and salary-matching figures via Hoops Rumors and Over The Apron. All figures as of November 5, 2026.