OnTheBlack

yes, Jabari was the 2nd pick in the draft that they got a full season and 2 half seasons from. not exactly what you would expect from 2nd overall and that was 5 years ago. Wilson will contribute, and DDV didn't get much of a rookie year, but I think on June 19th, you can say they struggled on 1st round picks. Yes you need to develop players in Milwaukee, especially since you will not be getting top free agents to come here, my only point was in this offseason, its more important to resign your guys rather than get the 30th pick in the draft. I understand what you're saying, but when you saying, "going back to Jabari," as you said, that's 5 years. Only 5 years. It takes picks a while to develop. So I just don't agree that we can say they've struggled recently on 1st round picks. I'm also not really making the distinction between 1st round picks and picks overall that you are as Brogdon was picked just a few spots after where we're picking this year, and has been a top 5 player in both VORP and WS's, they picked up a 3 and D role player in Brown, one of the other main guys people have talked about replacing Middleton with. They clearly missed on Thon and Vaughn they hit on Wilson, Brogdon, Brown. And they just got incredibly unlucky with Jabari. You can't really blame them for two torn ACL's. You could potentially blame them for how they handled the Jabari situation after he was already here, but not for the production you got from him. That not really a fair representation of their ability to scout as I think almost every team would have taken him 2nd and many 1st. In a poll, 37 pct of GM's said he'd be the best player in that draft class, 75 pct thought he'd be ROY. I was never really a fan of Parker but after Embid went down with an injury, I was hoping the Cavs would take him and we'd get Wiggins...but he too has been underwhelming to say the least. Hell, I wish they'd have signed him this past off-season and then they could have dealt him to the Wizzard's and they could let Middleton walk and have Otto Porter. So I don't think you're being entirely fair about their picks. You also have to keep in mind that Bud comes from Pop's coaching tree and he is loathe to play rookies and doesn't play young player in general much. It takes a while for them to develop. So I'm looking at 4 years in which we added DJ Wilson, Malcom Brogdon, and Sterling Brown and missed out on a couple other guys they technically drafted because they'd traded away their picks(OG Anunoby and Norman Powell were drafted with the picks we sent to Toronto). But the way this team is dealing future picks to clean up past mistakes, they're going to end up with very few options to pick up young talent in Giannis prime. I agree it's more important right now to sign our priority FA's, but I do not think it's worth it to package a 1st and Ersan just to get rid of Ersan. At the very least I'd hope we're getting a nice veteran PG in return. If we can move Snell for a non-guaranteed contract or at least an expiring deal and get back at least something, I'd be in favor of that.

Regardless of the message board opinions, there's almost no chance that Hill is back next year at his salary. He has said he winning is his priority over money and I doubt he ever seriously expected anything other than free agency this year. I'd honestly rather see the Bucks let Lopez go and use their MLE on a PG. Patrick Beverly is younger and a better 3 point shooter. I think because of how bad Bledsoe was on catch and shoot 3's and how erratic he was in the playoffs, people forget that George Hill was bad last year in the post-season and was not very good with the Bucks. He shot 28 pct from 3, and had the worst year of his career. That's not a guy that the Bucks are giving 18 million to next year. They'll find a way to get a veteran backup PG. Hill's more likely to sign for the vets minimum than he is to have the Bucks pay the non-guaranteed money this year.

No, not really. Giannis will making about 35 pct of the salary cap in the near future. The only way they could free up room in order to reload would be by letting pretty much everyone walk this year, try to unload Snell. And then you're left with Giannis, whoever you'd get to sign for 1 year deals(maybe Lopez does, but more likely he goes elsewhere if he sees that we're going to basically tank, which is what we'd be doing if we tried to create cap space next year). And then you'd have to deal with Giannis who has stated he wants to stick around on numerous occasions, but he's also talked about how winning is his top priority and how he wants everyone back. So now you've let Middleton walk because you don't want to overpay him much, you've let Brogdon walk, Hill is almost certainly going to be waived, Lopez may come back at the MLE, but I think you'd create an incentive for him to look elsewhere since the team likely wouldn't be competitive. And you'd do all this in the hopes that you could get a max level player to come to Milwaukee in what is NOT a good looking FA class. AD is almost a given to sign an extension in LA, after that you've got guys like Draymond Green, Andre Drummond and players like that who are the next best players available. So you'd have to tear down this team that won 60 games and was up 2-0 in the ECF's and you'd do so with the hopes that you'd be able to get someone better than Middleton...which is unlikely given the FA class. Your best bet would be Otto Porter and that's really not enough of an upgrade over Middleton to give up all the rest of the guys you'd have to renounce or let go and also risk losing Giannis. So the only logical option(IMO) is to just suck it up and overpay Middleton a few million, agree with him to sign after they conclude the rest of their off-season business so they can still use the full MLE on whomever, re-sign Brogdon and hope that Horst can pull out a couple more rabbits from his hat like he did last year when he dumped some big salaries. But this is why I hope they don't have to part with their 1st rounder. Even being the 30th pick, you at least have a chance to get someone who can contribute and eventually develop. This roster is always going to be real top heavy unless you can get lucky and somehow acquire another All-Star caliber player with Giannis.

I remember people saying similar things about Kidd and even Nash. I refuse to believe a 21 year old, 6'7 kid who's an elite passer and a very good defender could be maxed out already. And even if he doesn't turn into a better than 33 pct 3 point shooter, with his ball handling, passing and defense, that right there is extremely valuable. But I guess how highly you think of him depends on what the chances are you think he can overhaul his shooting. You can't have a PG who shoots like Shaq at the line. As for Ingram, I have no idea what his career ends up looking like. But I do know he's got every attribute you need to become a superstar. He's an explosive athlete and he's soooo long. And again, 21 years old. And I think the arrow is pointing up on both of them playing in New Orleans now and getting out and away from LeBron and the Lakers mess. Put them under the radar a bit with a really good-underrated head coach and I think they could really develop. As for Horford, I guess maybe some team will surprise me and give him a 3/4 year deal at 20 million per, but if I were him, I'd take the 30+ million this year and then go into free agency next year. Being two years younger than Gasol, I'd think he'd likely get at least the MLE for a few more years meaning he'd end up with 30 this year, and then ~10 the next 2-3 years. So 4 years 60 million. Not sure he's worth more than that. What I did find interesting were all the reports that Horford was headed to Milwaukee right after that came out and then the two wide eye emoji's that Giannis posted that had a lot of people getting worked up. I guess we could trade Hill+Ersan for Horford and sign him for 4 years and 75 million, but I'm pretty sure it was just a story that was created out of almost thin air.

My guess is that Rasmussen isn't even close to the top 100 if you ask the guys that put these lists together. Vastly overrated on here. The minor leagues are glorified practice but still, not many top 100 guys get shelled to the tune of 11 runs in 10IP at any given stretch in a year. Absolutely neither of these things are true...at ALL. The idea that Minor league baseball is glorified practice is just absolutely ridiculous, so too is the idea that because a pitcher gave up 11 ER's in 10 IP they wouldn't end up on the top 100 list. Check out Forrest Whiteley's line for the season. His ERA is over 12 in glorified practice! He should just be waived! And Dylan Cease just gave up 4 or 5 ER's in 2/3rd of an inning! Yank him off that list. His stuff, the totality of his work, none of it matters. He had a bad stretch! And...get this. He's got an ERA over 4.3 in AAA. I guess that's two of the games best pitching prospects who shouldn't be on the list. Rasmussen likely didn't make the list because it's too small of a sample size. Most people aren't going to put a guy among the top 100 prospects after two years out after 2 years and just 40 innings. I think it's kinda almost cute you think it's because you can find the guys worst 10 inning stretch after moving up 3 levels in a few months and use that as your reasoning why. If Rasmussen stays healthy and continues pitching this way for the rest of the year, he'll likely be a top 100 prospect. His stuff is as good as just about anyone in the minors.

Found the article on Nelson. Talks about how often he threw the change in the minor leagues and how he went away from it. So again, I don't see this as some defect in the Brewers minor league coaches. https://www.mlb.com/news/brewers-jimmy-nelson-focused-on-changeup/c-166354252

I have to wonder about the Brewer minor lg. pitching coaches. So many young guys come up w/o any sort of change-up. How in the world did Peralta progress w/o somebody showing him and then demand he throw a change-up? A circle change or even a straight palm ball is thrown like a fastball. Neither pitch is that hard to learn or throw. With Peralta's motion, a change-up would be a devastating pitch for him. It would make his 92-93 fastball look much quicker and help dramatically against lefties. Agree completely. Harped about this in far too many posts. Everyone is fastball/slider, and even the slider is usually suspect. Big heat was effective for a while, but hitters have adjusted. Almost criminal these guys aren't taught how to throw various changes, and get proficient at throwing the one they're comfortable with. Then again, always wondered why there arent more (any) knuckleballers anymore. The fastball slider combo is working pretty well for Woodruff. The problem with Burnes and other pitchers isn't that they don't throw a changeup, they get into trouble locating their fastball. But again, the Brewers do teach changeup's. But a pitcher has to throw what he's most comfortable with and when you shift your draft ideology and you start veering more towards more advanced college arms, they're going to throw the pitches they feel the most comfortable with. It wasn't long ago that the Brewers minor league pitching coaches were almost fanatical about making every single pitcher throw changeup's. That when they were trying to develop the Rogers, Jones, Jeffress(who throws an exceptional change) prep arms. They did in fact "demand" that they learn and throw a changeup. Seems like the Brewers are doing a better job of developing pitching now than they did in the past. Jimmy Nelson was the same. I remember him earlier in his career talking about how he wanted to go back to his change more, but that he'd gotten away from it when he graduated to the big leagues because he had a higher level of confidence in his curve as his 3rd pitch. The thing I take the most exception with is how easy it is to develop and throw a good changeup. If it were that easy, every pitcher would do it. These guys aren't going away from a pitch they routinely threw in the minor leagues because it's so effective and easy. They're doing it because they have a higher level of comfort with their other pitches.

I have to wonder about the Brewer minor lg. pitching coaches. So many young guys come up w/o any sort of change-up. How in the world did Peralta progress w/o somebody showing him and then demand he throw a change-up? A circle change or even a straight palm ball is thrown like a fastball. Neither pitch is that hard to learn or throw. With Peralta's motion, a change-up would be a devastating pitch for him. It would make his 92-93 fastball look much quicker and help dramatically against lefties. Who says they don't? I'm not sure who all these other guys are who don't throw a change, but with Peralta, he was 21 when he was called up and he threw a change. He was rushed up a bit, but he certainly threw a change. But when you're 21 years old and making your first start in Coors and you strike out 13 and don't give up any runs using your two best pitches, it can stunt the growth of that third pitch. There aren't a lot of opportunities to develop a 3rd pitch while pitching for a contender.

What in the heck is Al Horford thinking? He's opting out of a 30+ million dollar player option and he's going to look for a new team? He'd be the type of guy that IF he were a FA I'd like to see the Bucks target with that MLE. A vet on the downside of their career, but Horford and the Celtics are "too far apart" on contract talks, so he's leaving. Absolutely baffling to me. That organization was primed to be a contender for years to come and just 1 year later, they're losing their lone superstar, a player who's lost a ton of his shine after the series he played vs us, their budding superstar decided that he was going to forgo the passing part of his game(Tatum) and now they're left with guys who think they're better than they are and then some really great role players like Smart.

It's just hard to get too excited about the Middleton deal. You're not adding anything. But to lose him would have been a huge blow, so it's good. It'd be even better if they could come to a mutual understanding and sign this deal after the Bucks have completed the rest of their off-season business. Allow them to keep that full MLE. As for Ingram and Ball, maybe it's not the case with you, but I think people would like him a lot better if his Dad was literally anyone else. He's such a rare player. A 6'7 PG who's got great court vision. But like Ingram(and pretty much everyone their age) they still have their flaws. I guess it depends on how you look at young players. If you look at them as they are right now or if you look at what they're capable of. I put a greater emphasis on the later as that's how I feel you should build a team. It's why I'm still a big fan of Jayson Tatum and CHL isn't. If nothing else, a lineup of Ball, potentially Culver, Ingram, Zion and Randle. That'd be a lineup that can get up and down the court and would be fun to watch. And they still have some assets they could trade away in the interim like Jrue Holiday who is locked up for the next 4 years, the last of which he'll be 32 and owed nearly 40 million dollars. I will say this, the Pelicans right now don't have a basketball team, they've got a NBA portfolio. They've got assets. If you threw this team together and asked them to play next year, there'd be a lot of redundancy...similar to, but not as good as the Celtics. I suspect you're right though. Maybe not with Ball/Ingram, but the Pelicans are going to have to move players.

I don't get it. Ingram, the 21 year old with absurd length had a better effective field goal pct this year than George Hill(the 2nd most important player on the Bucks in your view) and you don't like him? A lot of writers have talked about how this is one of the biggest hauls for a superstar player that they've EVER seen. I don't see how it's even similar to the KG trade. You had Al Jefferson who had a good year, not 3 young talented players like Ball, Ingram and Hart. And in that trade you didn't get nearly as much value in trades. And sure, the Lakers may get superstars to come. That's why the Pelicans have the ability to just pass and say, "nah, we'll wait a year to take their pick" in 2024 or swap picks. It's not even debatable that Ingram has a huge upside. And outside of the circus that has become the LAL, he has a much better chance to reach it. Lonzo Ball is already an elite passer/rebounder, he just needs to improve his shot, and Hart is a smart player who could play for any team. Ingram's a guy who's just a shade under 6'10, has a 7'3 wingspan, put up 18+ a night last year and has the athleticism to play the 3. If this guy was a Buck, we'd be drooling about his upside. Of course you can find flaws in his game. He's 21...and if there weren't, he'd BE the 2nd superstar along LeBron, not being traded for it. I don't know what more a team could have gotten back than 3 young players, 2 who have all-star/superstar potential, a 3rd who is a very good, solid, smart young player and 4 future draft picks and or rights to swap or wait for a better pick. The Pelicans future looks far better today than it did yesterday and I don't know what team in the entire NBA could have trade as much away without giving up their best player.

Can you imagine how many picks Herb Kohl would have traded away if he were allowed to? It sends a shiver down my spine. It's important for the health of the league that owners aren't allowed to mortgage the future indefinitely. Probably far less than this current group has or would. That seems like an odd dig at Kohl. He was more responsible for pushing the team to go out and get a past his prime star to get the team to a potential 8 seed, not so much for mortgaging the teams future.

That's what I said. It went back to the Cavs from the early 80's. It's named after their Owner I believe. I thought they'd altered the rules in recent years.

The bucks have gotten minimal contributions from their first round picks since Jabari. They need to sign their free agents. If the bucks were not the eastern conference favorite or atleast co-favorite (depending on if Toronto can sign Kawaii), i'd be against it too. There was a report that the bucks needed to get to the finals for Giannis to resign (who knows if this is legit, but its there) (https://sports.yahoo.com/giannis-antetokounmpo-bucks-contract-free-agent-supermax-050656966.html) if they want to buy a 2nd, I'm OK with that, but I don't think you can expect any contributions from that pick next season. Yes, there are some players that should be around at 30 that I am excited about, but I realize that they need to sign their guys to have a chance to build on what they did last season, because of some stupid free agent decisions that were made. 1st-Jabari wasn't that long ago. So that isn't really that telling. We have DJ Wilson who looks like he'll contribute, we missed on Vaughn and we have DDV who people are talking about being one of the main guys to fill in for Middleton. But what they've done in the past few years with 1st round picks isn't really the point. I don't think you give up on drafting and developing players because you've struggled with it(and again, I don't really think they've struggled that badly as your statement could be very different 9 months from now if Wilson and DDV are key contributors). 2nd-I saw that report on Giannis. I think everyone saw that. That women Malika Andrews or whatever asked Giannis a question and he got up and walked out. It was totally, 100 pct speculative and had zero quotes from Giannis. But what I think we all know is that he's not going to stick around if the Bucks aren't competitive. The Bucks have traded...what a half dozen future picks if not more already? They have very little opportunity to add talent over the next 4-5 years. Throwing this chance away just to get rid of a key player(Ersan) and an expiring contract would be foolish. It'd be different if it was Snell and someone who could help us this year, but definitely not Ersan and a 1st just for the right to get rid of the last year of his expiring deal.

Hardly anyone was skeptical of Hiura, and no one thinks those three are shoo-ins to be anything. That was pretty much what I was thinking. Who are all the people who are skeptical of Hiura? The ONLY questions I saw about him was if he would rake this year or if he would start raking next year. Pretty much everyone I saw thought he'd develop into a middle of the order bat at 2nd. I still like Brinson for the record. I said at the time of the trade and I still believe he's the type of guy who's going to take a long time to develop, similar to how it took Gomez a while to figure out MLB pitching. The issue is his confidence. And probably moving on to a team like the Orioles or another bad team that didn't trade away the guy who turned into Mike Trout for him. I'd imagine Marlins fans don't particularly like seeing Brinson's mug on the screen hitting .185 while Yelly wins an MVP and then gets better. Someone should ask all 5 of them what they think about Brinson.

Sure be nice to see vintage Aguilar knock one out to RF after Moose walks and Perez gets a seeing eye single. Or Moose will hit a dribbler out in front of the plate. Oh well. We'll get 'em tomorrow.

Sure be nice to see vintage Aguilar knock one out to RF after Moose walks and Perez gets a seeing eye single.

19 pct of the time isn't really that rare. And for a point of reference, it's been better than any of Woody's secondary pitches. But he's 23 years old and was advanced rather quickly through the upper levels, so I'd be a bit more surprised if it WASN'T erratic. His change is erratic and needs work, but it only needs to be ~average if he's locating the fastball.

Neither do I, but I can't be mad about that last AB. In fact, that last inning was kinda depressing because Stammen was masterful with that fastball. It looked almost exactly like what Nelson's Fastball looked looked like pre-injury. Lively and he was able to locate it to both sides, and vertically. Of Shaw's issues are hardly relegated to one single AB. Still, I'd like to see both guys given through this month to get going. If they're still struggling, they're still struggling and you have to make a move by bringing Keston back up. But if you can just get one of them going, you're basically adding a middle of the order bat to a division leading team and you only have to worry about adding a couple of rental arms to the BP.

It's a no-brainer! He's only got two pitches, after all. So did Ben Sheets. Most starters throw 2 pitches about 90+ pct of the time. There's no reason to pigeon hole him into either role right now.

Actually worse for Durant with the torn Achilles. The ACL you come back from now almost 100 pct if not 100 pct if you put in the time. The Achillies you never come back 100 pct from(or almost never). True story. My father tore his achilles at age 40 and never played rec league volleyball again. Lawn sports only from that day on (sarcasm ... but still true). Yeah, it's brutal. Just kinda tweaking an Achilles takes forever to heal. I've tweaked it...it's just brutal. Still, I think KD comes back and is an elite player again. I don't know that he'll ever be the best player in the NBA again(as I believe he may have been this year) as he'll be 32 and Giannis will have another full year by the time he's likely back at 100 pct, but he could still be an elite offensive player and a capable defender.

I think it's a brilliant move by the Pelicans. You'd be hard pressed to find a superstar who netted such a huge return. The #4 pick in this draft, Brandon Ingram who has the wing span of a 747 and is extremely talented(though raw), Lonzo Ball who's a very-very good young PG, Josh Hart who is a smart and solid young PG, they also get 3 additional 1st round picks with so many conditions on them that the Pelicans COULD end up with a lot of high lottery picks in 4-5 years when LeBron is an older player, possibly no longer playing. They have the right to pass on picks in certain years if they don't like where the Lakers are picking and wait another year to see where they may be picking, they get to swap picks in other years if they chose to do so. And the young talent now has a very good coach and suddenly a well run franchise to help them build. Zion Williamson, the 4th pick in the draft which should give them a good player, a potential franchise PG in Lonzo Ball(not superstar per say, but very-very smart player despite having such a moron for a father), a potential superstar in Ingram who looked like one at times this past year, but who also looked awful at other times. The Pelicans got back talented players from the Lakers, but guys who may not develop, but they protected themselves by adding SOOO many future draft picks. I don't think the Lakers give up this much for any other player in the NBA outside of Milwaukee right now.

They also have DJ Wilson. He's not a 5, but if you have Giannis and Wilson out there together, you've got rim protectors. And you can always pick up a big. It's a stretch 5 that you want. Lopez is a nice player, but he's far more relevant during the regular season than in a post-season series. He was a liability vs guys like Horford and especially vs the Raptors. He couldn't guard Gasol on the perimeter. This is one reason I'm really hoping we're not trading our 1st rounder this year. We have to find a way to develop good role players late in the 1st round. We already owe 6-7 future picks if not more. Only 2 are 1sts, but still, you don't want to paint yourself into a Cleveland like situation where you've got just terrible depth and no way to remedy it and you lose your franchise player.

They were able to trade it once it became officially theirs. You can't trade a 1st rounder when you owe two future 1sts, but if you own the first for that year, you can trade it. Edit-I don't know that this made sense. Point is, they can trade it. They couldn't trade it before it was officially theirs for this year. It's to protect teams from themselves. That is just overly confusing dang you NBA and your weird rules! I think this is a result of Brooklyn who traded away so many 1st rounders when they were chasing a "super" team. It ended up being a super geriatric team with only Joe Johnson who still had a little left, but they traded for Paul Pierce, KG, and then they were awful and they didn't have any 1st round picks to rebuild...and several other guys and in the process gave away their first round picks for years, picks that helped make Boston one of the most asset laden teams in the NBA. It worked to our advantage this year as they had so much redundant talent, they ended up hurting themselves(along with Kyrie having his worst shooting slump of his career). But they have the talent to make just about any trade they want. And then there was already a rule in place where you can't trade consecutive 1st round picks going back to the early 80's with the Cavs. So if I understand correctly, you can't trade more than two first round picks at a time and you can't trade consecutive 1st round picks, the later dating back ~40 years and the prior just a few years...I think.

Bob McGinn is Bob McGinn. I follow the whole league without needed to be fed by sources. Well GBs avoidance of modern era defensive football has been a thorn in my side for years. The Burnett hybrid LB thing, was 3 years behind Sutton in KC. Our Ss have made me age faster. Amos and Savage is finally getting into the new age. Martinez and the buck position is the last piece. It bothers me when people go, no its fine, its above average. No its what stops this team from having a good defense. S and LB, and now 1 is solved. I get it, I'm nuts. I'm aware. It bothers me when people claim that Blake Martinez isn't worth anything.