The Milwaukee Bucks and Minnesota Timberwolves are two teams outside of the playoffs looking in, both hovering around 20 wins on the season with 20 games left to go. Their respective seasons are over as it would take a miracle for them to make the playoffs. With both teams out but filled with young talent it’s just natural for them to be looking around at what could be next.
One of the younger pieces on the Timberwolves, Ricky Rubio, has been brought up in trade discussions all season long but for some reason, the Timberwolves didn’t pull the trigger. It appears they were poking around to get the right deal to benefit them and they extended an offer to the Bucks involving Rubio. An idea that was floated around at the trade deadline was the possibility of doing a swap between the two teams involving Ricky Rubio and Khris Middleton.
Following from Zach Lowe of ESPN.
After some initial talks, the Wolves told the Bucks they would swap Ricky Rubio for Middleton, and when the Bucks declined, the Wolves even discussed the possibility of tossing in a protected 2016 first-round pick, per league sources familiar with the matter. Other outlets have reported of the Bucks’ interest in Rubio — Bucks head coach Jason Kidd seems to have a thing for rangy point guards with busted jumpers — but they never seriously entertained trading Middleton, sources say.
Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jabari Parker were never on the block, leaving the Bucks with only one real counter: a point guard challenge trade of Michael Carter-Williams for Rubio. The Wolves obviously weren’t doing that, and discussions died, sources say.
