Bart Winkler, Host of The Bart Winkler Show

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Shop in-store or visit Ashley.com today. Bart, what's happening my friend? I'm sorry to join you on such a sad day throughout the NBA because, man, you watch some of these shows.

You listen to some of these shows. It's a funeral that the Bucks were the ones that acquired Damian Lillard. I'm so sorry everyone. I'm so sorry everyone that another championship's coming back to MKE. My sincere condolences. Sincere condolences.

Here's the thing that I find to be the most hysterical. Dame clearly wanted to go to Miami. And him wanting to go to Miami may have made Joe Cronin say, I'm not really inclined to grant you that wish. And ultimately, Dame wanted to win a championship from the jump.

Going to Milwaukee gives him a better chance to win a championship with Giannis Antetokounmpo than it would have been if he ended up getting his wish to go to the Miami Heat. Miami, it would have changed with Dame. But when you're talking about Miami, you still, when you're predicting the East, you think of Milwaukee, Boston, and Philly before you, oh yeah, Miami did that thing last year. I put Miami before the Sixers before today.

I still would have done that. Yeah, well I mean that's fine. Sixers need to blow the whole thing up. Trade indeed. Serious.

So with Miami, it's really like as a Bucks fan, and you know that's what I am, we've heard from no fan base more in the last three years than Miami. Yeah. Because they thought for sure they were getting Giannis.

Oh boy. They thought for sure. And then, they were going to get Dame on a silver platter, and for some reason the talk stalled, it was almost like when the Jets were just like, I mean we're getting Rogers, so we're the only option, nobody's going to jump in and get Aaron Rodgers, so we can wait this thing out and we'll eventually get them.

And they did. Well, Miami kind of took that approach, which opened up other teams to just be in action. You know, whether it's Brooklyn or Chicago, Toronto, whoever was talking, this guy you know is going to get traded to one of your rivals. Why not make a phone call?

Why not see what it would take? And for the Bucks to send out Drew Holiday, which is a very bittersweet thing, he's incredible, on and off. Yeah, but you got Damian Lillard.

I get it, people love Drew Holiday, but now you're replacing him with Damian Lillard, that's an actual great elite player. They traded a bunch of picks that are going to probably not be swapped until I'm dead. They've got, I should check the heart on that one, they've got Grayson Allen and Drew out for Damian Lillard.

This is an unbelievable deal. The Bucks are still going to tinker a little bit, but yeah, the odds skyrocketed for them. And I think in Milwaukee, this was a team that was going to be good. And I think that this was a team that wanted to see one last ride with the guys that did it, Drew Middleton, Brook Lopez, Bobby Portis, a lot of these guys still here.

But I think what was going to happen was if they didn't fail, or if they failed, then you would look at next offseason with some assets and maybe make some trades. And maybe this time they did feel a little more pressure from Giannis, because it wasn't just him giving one interview, it was giving multiple interviews. And I think John Horst, who's done an incredible job, his tenure there, he probably looked around and said, all right, I get it, I understand what Giannis is saying, I should explore this Damian Lillard thing. And when you find out you can get Damian Lillard for a couple of guys and some picks in six years, it just fell right into the Bucks' lap.

Well, I think the craziest part, too, is when you follow it as Bart Winkler's here with us. So the Bucks were down 0-2 in the NBA Finals to the Suns, and you end up coming back and you win in six, right, Bucks in six, Bucks in six. But then the Suns help you again, because this deal doesn't get done if Portland doesn't get back DeAndre Aiden, because that's the big piece here in this deal when you look back at it from what the Portland Trail Blazers got for Damian Lillard.

Oh, yeah, that was, I mean, for the Suns to jump in, you know, that's great. And that whole thing was facilitated with them getting Beal and Durant. And, you know, so there's so many things like if the Suns never had their new owner that wanted to go all crazy on trades, they don't have the ability to flip Aiden or the need to.

And, you know, who knows where Damian Lillard ends up. So everything always plays off each other. And yet the Bucks-Sunks connection.

But really, I think, you know, there's a lot of teams that will look at this trade and say, well, we could have offered that. Well, that's why you have to pick up the phone. Like the NBA, that's why you have to, you should be, these GMs should be texting each other constantly. You got to pick up the phone. And it sounded like the Bucks were told there was some interest.

They picked up the phone and said, what do we got to do to get this done? And it's a very sweet deal. So I'm very excited as I think a lot of Bucks fans should be.

And for good reason, the rest of the NBA does not seem to be. So take me inside the Bart Winkler compound. You get this alert today that Damian Lillard is going to the Milwaukee Bucks.

Relive the reaction for me right here on CBS Sports Radio. OK, I was on my couch. I was watching Black Panther Wakanda forever because I'm doing a complete Marvel watch. OK, and I'm almost done.

And then I watched the Guardians Christmas today, too. But I get this text. I do. I get this.

I paused Guardians three to do this. I get this text from a guy and I got, you know, Bucks fans text everybody today. But I got the text from the one guy who I've been talking to the most, my buddy Paul.

He's on my podcast a lot. He's always he he loves the rumors more than the games. And he he just and I said, just stop with this dame stuff. This is so stupid.

It's not happening. It's so dumb. This is so outlandish. And then he sends me a text, three exclamation points and then dame.

And I can't even process. So I did and you were gracious enough to jump on. We did a live show today celebrating.

I don't think it was until I did a show then was on my couch for a little bit, looking at memes, looking at Twitter. And like two hours later, it started to sink in. Damian Lillard is going to be a buck. Like that is just it's just unbelievable what they've been able to do in this small market, where since the minute people realize Giannis was something, have been trying to get him out of here for years. And along the way, they traded all these pieces, traded the Drew holiday trade was for four second round picks. That was a heist. And they never win a title without Drew. That was an incredible deal. And now they go and trade for Damian Lillard and one up even.

And it's all happening in this little town over here on the shores of Lake Michigan, pop five eighty five thousand in suburbs. And this is where we've got two of the top seventy five players to ever play in the league. The interesting thing that we're going to watch this season is there's a lot of pressure on a new head coach and Adrian Griffin. He's got he he is he is walking into you become a coach.

And a lot of times it's like, all right, I got three years for my system. I got I'll implement this. Oh, no, no. You got to win now.

You've got Damian Lillard and Giannis and Terry Stott's Lillard's coach for like a decade is on the assistant staff. So this is going to be fun, man. I'm pumped. But here's the thing. Sometimes you get stars that form and you go, oh, it doesn't fit.

There's going to be chemistry issue. This is the perfect fit with Dame with Giannis on to the Kumpo. And now Chris Middleton becomes your third best player.

And he has no ego like that's a heck of a third player when you look at the three players that they have now in Milwaukee. Yeah, and it takes a lot of pressure off Chris. And I think Chris is going to have a monster year and excel. And he'll just be he'll just be asked to be Chris.

I think that Brooke Lopez will come back strong. Bobby Portis, Pat Coniston, Bobby, Bobby, our guy. And then they've got like I saw a tweet that the box are old and thin today. They're not. They've got young guys. They did have a decent draft.

They've got athletic freaks. Marshawn Beauchamp was not in this deal. We were you know, we every team's got that one young guy that they really love. Ours is Marshawn Beauchamp. He's going to be good.

And so this is a really was still some tinkering to do. And with all apologies to Shannon Sharp. Yes, they do have one of Giannis's brothers, the others in the G League. But this is a this is a this is a terrific team. This is like they're this is at the point where if they don't win the East, what horribly could have gone wrong?

They are. This is this is crazy as a box guy. This is crazy. All righty, Bart Winkler, I know how much you can't stand the Miami Heat. What did you make of the Jimmy Butler comments that the Bucks should be investigated for tampering? He's having a day, isn't he? One hundred seventy five dollars for gas.

He was complaining about for his car. Meanwhile, he's selling coffee cups for 20 bucks in the bubble. I think the heat are salty. It's funny to see Tyler Hero chime in. Tyler Hero, you are going to be traded.

OK, Tyler Hero. Oh, something happened. And then it didn't happen. Just like when you said you were coming to Wisconsin and then went to Kentucky.

Isn't that what you did? Nobody knows. There's not one Bucks fan that feels any type of remorse for whatever is the heater trying to cry foul on a scale of one to ten. One no confidence.

Ten the most confidence in the world. Where's your confidence at with the two and one Green Bay Packers who had a heck of a fourth quarter on Sunday down 17 to score 18 unanswered to win the game? The craziest part about this Packer season right now is that you can watch a game and it tells you nothing about what's going to happen the next game.

Like I cannot I cannot I don't know. Every option is on the table. Every possibility on Thursday night. Lions by ten, Lions by five, Packers by five, Packers by ten. It's all in play, just like it was against the Saints and it was against Atlanta and maybe not against the Bears week one.

But I think that what's comfortable and what's good to see is that we're three weeks in and yeah, they're two and one. And you can look at you can think long term playoffs and I don't think anybody's thinking Super Bowl. But when we're talking about things the Packers can improve on, it's there's you go down a list before you get to Jordan Love. And yes, Love has some things he needs to improve on. Love also did not flinch when they were down 17 nothing.

And for us to have these three games where he's thrown a boatload of touchdowns, ran for the one and then has already a defining moment. And no one's healthy too. Yeah, we're getting guys back hopefully.

We, I'm an owner. But I think that for Jordan, for the fact that Jordan Love isn't the number one concern or story or problem or whatever, huge win for the Packers. And they've got a lot of they've got a lot of junk on their schedule coming up, whether it's Minnesota or Carolina or Denver Raiders.

Yeah, it's good. Yeah, this could be a playoff team if they just, you know, keep learning and growing as they go. And this is a statement game coming up tomorrow night up against Detroit.

A lot of people high in Detroit heading into this season. You win this game, you start the year off three and one and then your next three games are the Raiders, the Broncos and the Vikings. Things could start to pick up real quick in terms of the national presence and people paying attention to these Green Bay Packers this year. Well, and it's the Lions who in week 18 last year came in and beat Green Bay with nothing to play for. The Lions knocked the Packers out of the postseason race. I still think if they would have played Jordan Love in that game, they would have won. I also thought when Brett Favre was at his final stages, I thought even him being an MVP, they should have played Aaron Rodgers in cold weather games because Favre was too old for it.

And I think the same thing happened to Rodgers. They should have whatever. That's the water under the Bay Bridge. So you've got that's not the big I couldn't think of the Green Bay Bridge. So I think that them playing the Lions with some sort of revenge factor at play, I think they'll be ready.

I don't know if they're going to win or not, but they'll be ready. It should be a good game on Thursday to Al Michaels. Great liking. Make sure you check out the Bart Winkler show on his podcast. Also, you can check him out on CBS Sports Radio. He is Bart Winkler. Bart, thanks so much for doing this. Thanks, gentlemen.