UPDATE: Per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Bogdanovic is moving on to find other offer sheets or sign-and-trade possibilities. Now, this could, in theory, still result in him on the Bucks but it certainly points to the potential that this deal will completely fall apart.
The Kings and Milwaukee Bucks had hoped to bring Bogdanovic the framework of a sign-and-trade to negotiate a Bodanovic contract with Milwaukee on Friday, but he will move into the marketplace to find an offer sheet or seek out other sign-and-trade scenarios, sources said. https://t.co/KDlBiLcaBs
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) November 19, 2020
Original Story: On Monday night, the Milwaukee Bucks and Sacramento Kings reportedly agreed to a sign-and-trade deal that would send Bogdan Bogdanovic to the Bucks for D.J. Wilson, Donte DiVincenzo, and Ersan Ilyasova.
It was the second big trade of the night for the Bucks, who acquired Jrue Holiday earlier on Monday in a blockbuster trade with the Pelicans, and positioned them to have a star-studded starting five surrounding Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Bogdanovic deal raised some eyebrows for a number of reasons, but one of those was that it couldn’t legally be done until Friday when free agency was opened and appeared to be some of the most blatant tampering — a thing that always happens, just quietly, and, honestly, the NBA should just stop trying to enforce — we’ve seen in some time.
However, two days later things appear to have hit a snag per The Athletic’s Sam Amick — who is among the most plugged in reporters with the Kings. According to Amick, it seems no one every got Bogdanovic’s full sign-off on this deal and it is now “in peril.”
More to come at @TheAthleticNBA, but an update here on the Bucks-Kings Bogdan Bogdanovic situation. pic.twitter.com/mN2GOaLoKJ
— Sam Amick (@sam_amick) November 18, 2020
Now, there are a number of things that could be at play here, so we’ll run through them all.
One is that they realized they’d tampered very clearly and are making it known that the deal may be off and will revisit and complete on Friday when they’re actually able to do so and hope the NBA just looks the other way. That’s a genuine possibility and it’ll be interesting to see if the league bites on it.
The other, and honestly, the more fun option, is Bogdanovic is pulling a fast one. It doesn’t happen often, but, it should be noted that Bogdan is represented by the same agent as Nemanja Bjelica, who is the most recent player to back out of an agreement with a team (the Sixers) citing wanting to go overseas and then signing with…none other than the Kings.
We likely won’t get complete resolution on this until Friday when deals can start actually being agreed to in the free agency moratorium period, but for now speculation runs rampant on what happened that could allow such a miscommunication to happen that let this deal get reported so widely but now be potentially in jeopardy.
