The Milwaukee Bucks had been stuck somewhere between the end of the lottery and the middle of the league for the longest time. Up until last season weren’t truly bad enough to get into the upper echelons of the lottery where players like Kevin Durant and Derrick Rose get drafted.

The Bucks now have an extremely bright future thanks to a young core that consists of Jabari Parker (the draft pick they got in return for their awful season), Giannis Antetokounmpo, Michael Carter-Williams, John Henson, Khris Middleton, Miles Plumlee and Tyler Ennis.

What’s particularly amazing about the young core is that all of the aforementioned players, with the exception of Parker, Henson and Antetokounmpo, are the byproduct of one player—Brandon Jennings.

Bucks general manager John Hammond flipped Jennings to Detroit in a sign-and-trade in the summer following the 2012/2013 to Detroit for Middleton, Brandon Knight and Viacheslay Kraystov.

At the time, no one likely thought it was a massive, needle-moving trade for the Bucks They acquired a cheaper replacement for Jennings, a former second-round pick and a seldom-used center.

However, as time progressed, the Bucks began to reap the benefits of the trade. Middleton developed into a quality, starting small forward who has averaged 11.9 points, 4 rebounds and 2 assists per game since making the move to Wisconsin. He’s made 41.5% of his three pointers during that span.

Knight bumped his scoring from 13.3 points per game in his final season in Detroit to 17.9 points per contest in his first season in Milwaukee. After a near All-Star first half where he scored over 17 points per game while dishing out 5.4 assists and pulling in 3.8 rebounds per game, he was dealt to Phoenix in a three-team deal that netted the Bucks Carter-Williams, Ennis and Plumlee (you can read about the Bucks and why they’re one of the NBA Trade Deadline’s winners here).

Carter-Williams may very well flourish under Jason Kidd in similar fashion to Knight. Ennis will also benefit from being coached by a future-Hall-of-Fame point guard. The team also acquired Plumlee in the deal. At worst, the Duke product is a dependable rotation big who can provide quality minutes at the five.

In the NBA, it’s uncommon for a team to turn one player into four quality players in a trades (or in this case, multiple trades). However, that’s what Bucks GM John Hammond did when he turned Brandon Jennings into four young players, all of whom could be key parts of the team moving forward.

All stats courtesy of http://www.basketball-reference.com/ unless otherwise noted.