Milwaukee Bucks rumors: Why trading for James Harden is unrealistic

The Milwaukee Bucks can’t afford James Harden

Since the Milwaukee Bucks are currently hard-capped, they need to send out the same or greater than the amount of salary that they absorb in any potential trades.

James Harden will earn $41.2 million next season, which would mean that the Bucks would have to send out equal to or more than $41.2 million of salary in order to acquire Harden in any deal. A combined package of Middleton, DiVincenzo, and Wilson would only equate to about $40.6 million so that potential offer is off the table.

The Bucks could add rookie Sam Merrill, the 60th pick in the NBA Draft, to make salaries work, but that would leave them with just 12 players on the roster. That would be way too complicated for Milwaukee to sort out and extremely unreasonable given their salary cap situation.

It would be very difficult for the Bucks to create a reasonable offer that would make sense for both themselves and the Houston Rockets. Therefore, the likelihood of Harden landing with Milwaukee is very low.

Despite the report that James Harden has the Milwaukee Bucks as one of his preferred trade destinations, it’s completely unrealistic for the Bucks to trade for him at this current time.