NBA Offseason Update: Major Trades Boost Two Championship Contenders

With the NFL season in full swing and the MLB playoffs beginning, the NBA doesn’t usually get talked about much during this time of year. On Sept. 27, however, the Portland Trail Blazers traded star guard Damian Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks in a three-team deal that also involved the Phoenix Suns.

This was, of course, one of the top stories in the sports world, as Lillard has been selected to seven All-Star teams and seven All NBA teams, has led the Blazers to the playoffs eight times and is still one of the best guards in the league, averaging 32.3 points and 7.3 assists per game.

In this trade, the Bucks received Lillard, and the Blazers received Jrue Holiday, Deandre Ayton, Toumani Camara, Milwaukee’s unprotected 2029 first round pick and unprotected pick swap rights with the Bucks in 2028 and 2030. The Suns received Jusuf Nurkic, Grayson Allen, Nassir Little, and Keon Johnson.

Lillard made headlines earlier in the offseason when he requested a trade from the Blazers, specifically to the Miami Heat, with his agent telling teams he would only play for the Miami Heat. It has also come out that Lillard wanted to return to the Blazers if he wasn’t traded to the Heat, but Portland didn’t want this, and Lillard and his camp started to consider other options, with Brooklyn and Milwaukee being two top options.

With this trade to the Bucks, Lillard, Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo and All-Star Khris Middleton will form one of the top trios in the league, making Milwaukee one of the top contenders to win the 2024 NBA Championship.

After this trade, another top Eastern Conference team made their own trade to improve their roster for a potential championship run. The Boston Celtics traded Robert Williams III, Malcolm Brogdon, the Golden State Warriors 2024 first-round pick and a 2029 first-round pick to the Trail Blazers for Jrue Holiday.

Adding Holiday to a good Boston roster also makes them one of the top NBA championship contenders for the upcoming season. Holiday will join Celtics stars Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, the newly acquired Kristaps Porzingis, and reliable center Al Horford, giving the Celtics a team that rivals and that may even be better than the Bucks.

The Bucks and Celtics have clearly elevated themselves as the two top teams in the Eastern Conference, and a potential Eastern Conference Finals matchup between these two squads already has NBA fans very excited for the season. Most sportsbooks have the odds to win the Eastern Conference, even between the two teams, and well ahead of the rest of the conference.

Also, most sportsbooks list these two teams as having the two best odds to win the championship, ahead of the defending champion Denver Nuggets. After the dominant run the Nuggets had to win last year’s championship and the fact that they return most of their key players from that team, they are still my pick to win the championship, but the Bucks and Celtics certainly could win it all themselves with these trades they have made to improve their teams.