All true but how many players in any sport nowadays start and end at the same place?
@Pikes Peak posted:All true but how many players in any sport nowadays start and end at the same place?
I don't want it to happen, but the Bucks would be better off long-term moving Giannis a year too early rather than a year too late. You assume he'll retain this athleticism for another 3-4 years, but he's not going to be a guy that remains good into his mid-30s. He can't shoot. He's going to go the way of Dwight Howard. Howard has an all-star 8 times before he was 28 years old and then completely fell off a cliff. He remained a good role player for years, but you can't pay role players 65 million dollars a year.
The problem the Bucks have is they are approaching a situation where Giannis' title window as the #1 player on a team may not match up with the most practical Bucks timeline to remain competitive. Lillard (turns 34 this year), Middleton (an old 33), and Lopez (36) maybe all have a year of two left. If the Bucks flame out, the logical thing to do would be to move these guys for younger player or draft picks to teams that think they are 1 player away from winning it all and will overpay (like the Bucks did for Jrue Holiday). But then you face a 2-3 year period where you are rebuilding and Giannis is still in his prime.
If they do move Giannis, they immediately become irrelevant and probably tank really badly. But they don't have any of their own picks until about 2030. If they keep him (which I hope they do) until the end of his career, they'll end up with a 35-36 year old player than can't shoot with diminishing athleticism making 75-80 million a year at that point.
I'm just glad I got to see them win a title in my Adult years. Anything after this, I feel very fortunate to have experienced.
If they move Giannis this year....how many of those picks will they get back? All of them plus more.
Figure it out.....the NBA wants him out of Milwaukee anyway
This offseason could very well be one of the most interesting in team history not since the 2001 season.
For all intents and purposes the Celtics aren’t going anywhere. Neither is Denver. Right now, they are clearly the two best teams in the league.
Milwaukee is stuck in that Lopez is aging and more and more is becoming unplayable by the day. Dame is still very good, but he looks disinterested and has a huge contract. Middleton is Middleton but he’s no cornerstone piece. Then there’s Giannis. He’s still technically in his prime, but for how much longer who knows.
To me, barring a conference finals appearance at a minimum there’s a 100% probability this same team isn’t back together next year. The question is how much change do you want to make and what will Giannis expect?
To me, there’s 3 options.
1) slightly rework the roster starting with moving Lopez and Pat C for a younger, more athletic wing or big man.
2) do the first option along with trading Lillard to the highest bidder. That would include Miami IMO. If the Heat said we’ll give you Herro and 2 1st round picks I think you make that deal.
3) the nuclear scenario- blow it all up by trading both Dame and Giannis. It seems hard to fathom but if Milwaukee can’t realistically compete with Dame and Giannis they need to reset. And moving both those guys would immediately replenish their draft stock in the neighborhood of 6-7 or more 1s (including unprotected 1s) and likely a few players that could be packaged or dealt for other assets.
The more time marches on the more I think options 2 or 3 are becoming more plausible.
The challenge of trading a guy like Giannis is what team realistically has the combination of picks and players? Lakers and Golden State have some picks and players but not as good as OKC or Orlando or New Orleans. All signs would surely point to the Knicks as they have the best combination of picks and players to choose from - especially the picks. The draft capital alone to acquire Giannis could be unprecedented. I’m talking like 4 or 5 1s and a starter and good role player. In reality, only the Knicks could offer that type of package.
@Boris posted:I'm just glad I got to see them win a title in my Adult years. Anything after this, I feel very fortunate to have experienced.
If they move Giannis this year....how many of those picks will they get back? All of them plus more.
Figure it out.....the NBA wants him out of Milwaukee anyway
The problem is that any team you move Giannis to is never going to be a lottery team (unless he gets hurt). The picks you get back will all be in the 20s. You can try to get picks from someone who has amassed picks from other teams that may be more valuable in the future, but you are going to be doomed to being a play-in team at best while you wait for those lottery tickets to maybe hit.
I agree that the fact I got to experience a title with Giannis (I was less than 2 years old when they won with Kareem) was probably one of the best Wisconsin sports experiences of my life (up there with the 1996 Packers Super Bowl win). Especially after being a huge fan of the Moncrief/Marques Johnson/Pressey/Lanier Bucks teams in the 80s that were really good but never even got to a Finals.
To win a title in the NBA you absolutely have to get a top 10 player (if not top 5). The list of guys that are still playing that are currently or have been that type of player is probably
LeBron (1st overall), AD (1st overall), Durant (2nd overall), Curry (7th), Kawhi (15th), Giannis (15th), Jokic (2nd round). That's the last 12 rings right there.
The list of guys that are were close to that level at one point (got at least to a conference final as the best player with a realistic chance to win), are close to that level now, or could be in the future is probably
Wembenyama (1st overall), A. Edwards (1st overall), Embiid (3rd), Tatum (3rd), Doncic (3rd), Gilgeous-Alexander (11th), Harden (3rd), Chris Paul (3rd), maybe Zion (1st), and playoff Jimmy Butler (2nd round)
You need to surround these type of guys with 2-3 other all-star types to win a title, but you aren’t winning without one of them. And there are less than 20 of them in the league right now (and less than 10 currently in their prime). Of the 17 I named, 11 were drafted in the top 3 overall in their draft, 4 were drafted in the mid- to late lottery, and two were second rounders.
If you are drafting in the top 3, you maybe have a 1 in 4 chance of getting a guy you can truly win a title with (let’s estimate 45 picks over the last 15 years with 11 guys fitting this subjective description)
If you are drafting between about 4 and 15, you maybe have a 1 in 40 chance (15 years, 170 picks, 4 guys that fit).
After the 15th pick, there are roughly 45 guys drafted every year. In the last 15 years, that’s almost 700 picks. 2 of them were superstars (1 in 350).
Even if you traded Giannis for every first round pick (or a pick swap to make it work) the Thunder have until 2030 (9 first round picks), your chances of getting anything resembling Giannis back within the next decade is almost zero.
The Bucks maximized a window after lucking into a generational superstar about as well as they could and won a title. Essentially, they had Giannis, lucked into another wing all-star when he was throw in from a trade 10 years ago (Khris), and then used virtually every other draft asset they had from 2018 to 2030 to progressively upgrade their point guard from Dellavadova, to Eric Bledsoe, to Jrue Holiday, and then to Dame. It worked. But it looks like the bill is coming due soon. I guess we should just enjoy it (Giannis in his prime as a Buck with other good players) as long as it lasts.
I mean, it could be worse. OKC didn’t win a title with Harden and Westbrook and Durant. Philly hasn’t won one with Embiid, much less ever reached a conference final. Miami has been competitive but hasn’t gotten over the hump. Imagine if Boston comes up short yet again this year?
Yes it’s hard to win a title for sure. But there’s also a limited window of competing and realistically this could be coming to a close sooner rather than later for the Bucks.
The question is 80% of their future is dependent upon what Giannis wants to do. That’s why I’m so damn frustrated with Damian Lillard. He’s got it made with this group. Yet he’s sulking, half assing it, basically doing everything possible to undermine what the rest of the team is doing. Giannis just shows up night after night and works his ass off. And Dame’s off somewhere else physically or mentally dicking around.
I would love nothing else for Lillard to come back and ignite this team through the rest of the season and then go nuts in the playoffs to help lead this team to another ring. Possible? Perhaps. Probable? I don’t think so. This feels more like a first or second round exit than Finals appearance, and the national media would love every minute of it.
If Milwaukee flames out again just wait. You thought Giannis leaving Milwaukee in 2019 speculation was bad? You ain’t seen nothing yet.
@Tschmack posted:If Milwaukee flames out again just wait. You thought Giannis leaving Milwaukee in 2019 speculation was bad? You ain’t seen nothing yet.
Especially with the Knicks now being legitimately good enough to play for a title with another piece. Get ready for the offer of Julius Randle, OG Anunoby, and a bunch of picks and pick swaps. The money matches Giannis' salary.
If this is even a remote possibility, Adam Silver will probably fly to Greece in the offseason and confidentially tell Giannis the NBA will market him to be the next LeBron if he demands out and wants to go to NYC.
Does anybody trust this front office to make good decisions in the draft if we get picks back?
Who was the last impact player drafted by the Bucks? Malcom Brogdon….in 2016?
@lambeausouth posted:Does anybody trust this front office to make good decisions in the draft if we get picks back?
Who was the last impact player drafted by the Bucks? Malcom Brogdon….in 2016?
They haven't first round picks that often, and when they did they weren't high enough to make it likely they'd get a good player. The best first round pick post-Giannis was probably DDV (given where he was taken), but they've had one first round pick in 5 drafts since DDV. This is it for the last 6 years. They missed on Parker, but that was 10 years ago. Thon Maker was a miss 8 years ago at the 10th pick. But it's not like they've had a lot of chances at picking in the lottery since Giannis became an all-star
2022- Beauchamp (24th overall)
2018- DDV (17th)
The moves you can really criticize Horst for the most were at the 2022 and 2023 trade deadlines.
In 2022, he traded DDV at the deadline. It was a very complex trade, but he essentially traded DDV for Serge Ibaka. Ibaka was completely unplayable.
In 2023, he traded 5 second round picks for Jae Crowder, who Coach Bud decided not to play at all in the playoffs. Crowder resigned in the off-season, but he could have done that for nothing had they not traded for him.
At a time when they needed another PJ Tucker-like addition to get them over the hump, he gave up almost all his remaining assets for nothing.
With hindsight, he should have kept DDV and extended him with his Bird rights and he'd still be on the team (once they traded him they couldn't resign him for anything other than a MLE or a minimum contract and he was going to make more than that). He's exactly what they are missing right now- a point of attack defender who can hit enough 3s to be playable. It seems like an eternity ago, but he was a Buck 2 years ago. They traded him partially because they didn't want to pay him and go further into the luxury tax, but he's making about the same as Connaughton right now. And if they'd have resigned him after 2022, he'd have been really cheap (the Warriors got him for 4.5 million and he parlayed that into 4 years/50 million from the Knicks. He'd look really good right now at something like 4 years/25 million.
Of course, hindsight is 20/20.