Right away, Damian Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo make for the second-best pick-and-roll duo in the NBA (let’s not forget who just won the championship), and if chemistry exists between the two at all, it could be one of the best we’ve ever seen. The sport is no longer hospitable to much post-up action, so to establish a true inside-out offense in 2023, you’ve got to have an elite slasher like Giannis and an elite deep gunner like Dame and, well, the Bucks now have exactly those two guys. In terms of raw court dynamics, we haven’t seen such a complementary rim-plus-arc pairing since the days of Shaq and Kobe, of T-Mac and Yao.

The addition does not come without subtraction: in order to get Lillard, the Milwaukee Bucks had to say goodbye to Jrue Holiday, who combined with Giannis and Brook Lopez to form the most football-like defensive look in the league. Turning Holiday into Lillard, in addition to firing coach Mike Budenholzer for newcomer Adrian Griffin, suggests a wholly new identity for Milwaukee, more offensively inclined—this is already evident in the immediately substantial uptick in Bucks home game ticket prices, which as a Chicagoan who needs to travel 90 miles to see basketball that’s both top-shelf and reasonably priced, I know about.

Lillard will have a sort of emotional homecoming with new Bucks assistant Terry Stotts, who was his head coach with the Portland Trail Blazers for nearly a decade. Stotts, as such, figures to be the Bucks’ offensive coordinator, and his comfort with scheming for Lillard will add to what’s already a job that even a novice could get lauded for. It won’t take a whole lot of creativity to get these pieces working together, but Stotts will bring it anyway. Khris Middleton, Lopez, and Bobby Portis will, in turn, enjoy the most open looks of their lives as Dame and Giannis panic and scatter defenses with their dual vortex dynamic.

About the defense, though, on which the Bucks have staked their reputation, and which won them a championship in 2021. It will be significantly worse for the Holiday-Lillard tradeoff. This goes without saying, probably, but it should be emphasized how extraordinary and essential a defender Holiday is, and how important he was to what the Bucks did; and how poor a defender Lillard is. It’s not really even accurate to say Lillard is “bad,” at defense, since most screens render him “non-existent,” which will ensure that Antetokounmpo has to do a lot more with his legs every night. 

It should be noted, too, that Lopez has had it good with Giannis and Jrue destroying everything on the front lines; he has gotten to inhabit a small piece of land, picking off rare stragglers. But he will also have to get busy stressing his calves and hamstrings with Lillard now up there instead—or, rather, not up there, if opposing offenses decide they want to exert the miniscule effort required to vanish him from the floor—and many fewer people will talk about the 35-year-old center as some kind of league-best defender when that’s the case.

The Blazers, post-Lillard, now have some more draft picks, and Holiday to unload to some thirsty contender for more picks yet as they ostensibly build around shining rookie Scoot Henderson. Their franchise and fanbase culture will clarify quickly as the fog of Dame’s late days leaves, and soon everyone will wonder why they spent all that time pretending that basketball in their city would permanently die without one specifically exciting scoring guard around. Portland also adds Deandre Ayton, an exceptionally talented center who’s so averse to playing like one that the Phoenix Suns would rather have the chronically injured Jusuf Nurkic around. With no expectations in Rip City, perhaps Ayton can have enough range to explore his game and show everyone that he is, in fact, built differently enough to not just be that pillar of concrete punishment that the Suns more clearly need in their (likely misbegotten) title quest.

Phoenix gets Grayson Allen from the Bucks, too, and in him they have one of the game’s more hated players—his singular blend of violence and smugness can propel the Suns to maybe unheard-of levels of Heel-ball, should they collectively accept the role. Regardless of the attitude they choose to adopt, Phoenix is not nearly as well-situated as Milwaukee now is to reach the 2024 Finals. Despite a weakened defense and forthcoming transitional difficulties, the Bucks are a clear favorite to win their conference, and have created something that everyone will want to see for a while to come.