coolhandluke121

That's my only real concern. As long as the Bucks make competitive offers, I consider it pretty unlikely. There's just so much incentive on both sides to stay with the same team. Guys that walk usually have serious reasons for wanting to leave. By the way, you left Mirotic off that list, but they inherited his Bird Rights so he will have a cap hold and all the benefits that entails as well. Even if one of them leaves, you still have to renounce free agent rights to several of the others to clear meaningful cap space. So no, they can't just use the $19.5 cap hold on Khris to sign someone else if Khris leaves. If Khris leaves, then the $19.5m cap hold is gone, but you still don't have any cap space because of the cap holds on Bledsoe, Brogdon, Mirotic, and the MLE (which is likely earmarked for Lopez). It's better to view the $19.5 cap hold as a placeholder giving you the right to go over the cap to keep Khris, but not to replace him. The only way to justify an outside free agent is if you have reason to believe at least two of your unrestricted free agents want to leave even if you make competitive offers. And even if two of them want to leave, you have to make sure you're getting someone better than the other two combined. Not all the sparkly free agents out there are better than Bledsoe + Khris combined. at BBQ. Can't believe I didn't think of that.

Yeah, it makes sense that a contender would play Mirotic and Ersan over Brown and Wilson. Experience counts for a lot. Ersan always seems to shake off his prolonged slumps at this time of year, and Mirotic is just a terrific player for the modern NBA. I think Wilson is going to be really good, but he looks too unsure of himself on offense. By contrast, Brown has no self-doubt and it's easy to love his approach, but I think he's got a bad case of chasing the ball too much. By the end of a possession, he's often completely out of position and somebody on the other team is taking a wide open 3. I think that's why adjusted on/off stats are so unkind to him despite him looking okay to a casual observer. BBIQ matters a lot and I'm not sure he has it. Ruben Patterson comparisons come to mind when I watch him play.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think he's had any type of injuries that could affect him long-term. I think it's a little too early to label him injury-prone. It's probably a combination of bad luck and putting himself at risk by playing hard all the time. A guy can learn to avoid bad risks without being like Manny Machado though. I remember when Molitor was considered extremely injury-prone, but he had better luck later in his career - even before becoming a full-time DH. I'd easily give him $30m per season into his early 30's.

I misspoke. It would be closer to $50m in cap space if you renounce everyone. In practice, the $40m is accurate because of cap holds on Brogdon and a pick and vacant roster spots. I forgot that I had already subtracted those, changing $50m to $40m as opposed to changing $40m to $30m as I implied. I apologize. The substance of my post and the benefits of retaining your own free agents is hardly affected by this mistake. Being able to keep Brogdon would be a certainty, rather than something with a hint of doubt, but you still wouldn't be able to keep any of the others.

They would still have lots of trade flexibility. There's no reason you couldn't sign all your guys and then trade them a few months later (there is usually a waiting period of sorts, but it's not long). That's the other key to this. You should spend as much as the CBA will allow to maximize the talent on your team. You can't just say "we want to go over the cap and win" at any time. Timing is key. You have to have the right to go over the cap when you're a contender, but if you forego that opportunity, it might be years before you have another golden opportunity to raise your payroll to those levels. You have to have Bird Rights to your free agents, and they have to be worth paying. If the Bucks want to use cap space on outside guys, they can only spend ~$110m, but if they want to just keep their own guys, they can spend ~$150m or more. They should jump at the chance to go way over the cap while they can, because once you're there, you're allowed to stay there. Then if you don't like everyone you re-signed, you can trade them as early as next winter. I don't believe anyone will see their trade value change much between now and then. The great irony here is that even if you do want an outside star/superstar, it would be far easier to acquire one by keeping everyone now and eventually using them in a multi-team trade for a guy who wants out. Davis will probably be off the market by then, but others will come available eventually. And you would be able to add them to a much better supporting cast that way, because you wouldn't have to trade all of Lopez, Bledsoe, Middleton, Brogdon, and Mirotic for a star.

It just doesn't make sense. You'd still have to renounce your Bird rights to multiple players just to sign one outside free agent. It basically comes down to being allowed to spend x dollars on outside free agents vs. being allowed to spend 2x-3x or more on your own free agents. What free agent out there could top that for x dollars? There's a reason these guys have the best record in the NBA with a +10 ppg differential. They're good, and being allowed to keep all of them is far better than anything they could get with outside free agents. It's literally a 4-birds-in-the-hand is better than 1-in-the-bush situation. (Bird Rights pun alert.) And even if that bird in the bush is Larry Bird, it's not like the ones in hand are chopped chicken liver. The interesting free agent questions are: - Will the Bucks come in with good enough offers to keep unrestricted free agents from walking for nothing? - Will Lopez accept exception money to stay in a great situation? They don't have full Bird Rights to over-pay him, unlike the other free agents. - If not, will their exception money be able to attract a good veteran looking for the right situation? Keep in mind that all contenders have some exception money to play with. - Will Milwaukee be a desirable destination for the best minimum-salary veterans, or will they still have to settle for seconds like Jason Terry? (Didn't hate him, but the most desirable destinations get better minimum-salary veterans.) - What will Brogdon get? I think it could be gross and have made it clear that I would have traded him at the deadline if a good return was available, but I won't argue that again until the off season.

They would have to renounce Bledsoe or Middleton's cap holds, meaning they could not resign them. They wouldn't have any money beyond the tax payer MLE to pay for Lopez (about 5.6 M). To resign the player they didn't renounce, as well as Brogdon and Mirotic, they have unlimited $, assuming the owners are willing to pay the luxury tax. Without Hill and Middleton, they have $59m in salary + dead money and about $40m in cap space. An unrestricted free agent would barely fit into that with the low cap holds on Brogdon, a draft pick, and a bunch of minimum salaries as placeholders for vacant roster spots. They would have to clear a significant amount of salary just to keep one cap hold on Mirotic, Bledsoe, or Middleton. Since unrestricted max free agents start at roughly $30m per year or more, they'd basically have to clear Snell and Ersan before free agency in order to keep a cap hold on Mirotic, Bledsoe, or Khris. It gets worse though. You can't use all your cap space unless you renounce your exceptions. That's a fact that I have never seen anyone else mention or be aware of in all my years of posting on RealGM and reading up on the CBA on basketball hype sites. You have to go straight to the source: http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q26 "If a team is below the cap, then its Disabled Player, Bi-Annual, Mid-Level (either the Taxpayer or Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level, whichever applies to the team) and/or trade exceptions are added to their team salary, and the league treats the team as though they are over the cap. This is to prevent a loophole, in a manner similar to free agent amounts (see question number 37). A team can't act like it's under the cap and sign free agents using cap room, and then use its Disabled Player, Bi-Annual, Mid-Level and/or trade exceptions. Consequently, the exceptions are added to the team salary (putting the team over the cap) if the team is under the cap and adding the exceptions puts them over the cap. If a team is already over the cap, then the exceptions are not added to their team salary. There would be no point in doing so, since there is no cap room for signing free agents. ... A team has the option to renounce its exceptions in order to reclaim its cap room." That's worded a little ambiguously in cases where adding the exceptions still doesn't put a team over the cap, but I'm pretty sure it applies to all teams under the cap. So no Lopez either if you want an outside free agent, unless he signs for a contract similar to this year's salary (no way that happens the way he's been playing). I keep trying to explain why the team just has to forget about free agency and pay the tax to keep everyone, but everyone is working on a woefully incomplete understanding of the CBA. That's understandable since it's exceedingly complex, but I've read all parts of the CBA that pertain to player transactions, and though I've forgotten a fair amount of it, I still have a lot of insight to add in that department. Brogdon is the only guy who could fit with a star outside free agent, and even that's cutting it close when you count the cap hold on a draft pick and automatic cap holds on vacant roster spots. If they don't clear a little more salary before free agency (Snell or Ersan to a team with cap space, or combine one of them with a pick to clear salary), they might not even be able to keep Brogdon. But the great thing is they can keep everyone on the team right now except maybe Lopez (if he demands more than the tax-payer MLE) if they are willing to pay the tax. Option A: Mirotic Bledsoe Middleton Lopez Brogdon And even Hill if they're willing to pay a lot of luxury tax Option B: Durant/Kyrie/Kawhi maybe Brogdon if they're lucky If you think option B is remotely as good as option A, how do you figure this team has the best record in the NBA and has a strong chance of being the 12th team in NBA history to finish the season with a +10 ppg scoring differential? Is Giannis worth two Olajuwons? It would be Giannis + Durant + the worst supporting cast in NBA history. No way that's a contender. The closest comparison to that kind of star power with such a horrible supporting cast would be Stockton/Malone. They lost in the first or second round 15 out of 20 seasons together (often to other forgettable playoff teams I might add, though admittedly they weren't the stars of the team right away) and never had a team that was as good as the Bucks are right now. And even their pathetic supporting casts were a lot better than the Bucks would be (Eaton, Dantley, Rickey Green, Hornacek, and Kirilenko were all-stars at some point, while Mark Jackson, Harpring, Bryon Russell, and Donyell Marshall were pretty good role players).

They can't keep anyone except Brogdon if they sign a max free agent though. Can't even use the MLE to keep Lopez, since you choose cap space or the MLE but not both. And they certainly can't sign a max free agent and pay the luxury tax. It's mathematically impossible because max cap space implies renouncing Bird Rights, which means you can't go over the cap (let alone the luxury tax) to keep those guys. You basically just sign draft picks and veteran minimum salaries. At this point, I'm pretty sure only Brogdon's low cap hold can work with a max free agent. It would be an absolutely terrible decision to decimate the best supporting cast in NBA history, arguably by far (seriously, what team has ever sniffed best record in the NBA with a +10 differential with just 1 truly deserving regular all-star?), for a chance at 2 superstars, Brogdon, and a bunch or role players. What would they actually be better at as a team? Because that's what matters, not formulaic cliches about the number of stars and non-stars on the team. They would be worse at everything except maybe ratings, lol.

Yep. Don't think he'll be on the team at all though, at least not until September. This was probably all about the team option next year, after a year of working his way back.

Never wanted Jabari, period. It's funny you should ask because there was this back-and-forth on RealGM for years about Jabari and lots of people got really mad at me for it. But I had him pegged from day one as a pure empty stats scorer who isn't even better than a typical glue guy, let alone a potential future star. I started out comparing him to Jamison, Big Dog, Mashburn, etc, but eventually settled on sf version of David Lee as the best possible comparison. There was a 400-page thread arguing about trading him, and the mod there titled it "sponsored by CHL". I wanted him traded to Utah for Favors/#5 before the draft, as Utah had offered that same package to Cleveland for the right to draft Jabari (the Cavs traded the pick for Love instead and Minnesota drafted Wiggins). The red flags were there all along, some going all the way back to high school. Didn't consistently take good care of his body and conditioning, was benched in the NCAA tournament, was a superfluous scorer who played the same position as Giannis or Khris, refused to box out or put a body on anyone, couldn't/wouldn't set good screens, was assisted on a ridiculously high percentage of his makes but couldn't really create his own offense in the flow, didn't really shoot well despite the myth of him being a great scorer, was one of the worst defenders I've ever seen, and the team was consistently better with him on the bench or injured than with him playing. The only time he ever was a positive influence on the team's chances of winning was when he hit 50% of his 3's for a 6-week stretch before tearing his ACL a second time, but we all know that kind of shooting was not sustainable. It reminds me of when Charlie Villanueva had a similar stretch in his last year with the Bucks, and Jabari is clearly going to have a similar career to CV. He was pretty much a guy who made a name for himself being bigger, stronger, and more athletic than college guys because he developed physically so much earlier than most athletes, but he couldn't fall back on being a man-child in the NBA and he pretty clearly didn't have the work ethic, mental toughness, or awareness to remain a good player when it got tougher. ETA: Basically I'm just saying I didn't see it as nuanced, even though most people did. So I'm entitled to hold it against them even if others would be guilty of benefiting from hindsight by doing so. There was never the slightest doubt in my mind that he was not a good player.

If Moose only gets 1/$8m, I'm pretty confident Gonzalez gets 3/$30m or more. I wouldn't be surprised if he's holding out for a little too much, but look what Lowrie, Murphy, and LeMahieu got. Gonzalez has to have much better offers than that IMO. He's much younger and more versatile. He's not very consistent, but neither are the aforementioned 3. Murphy is the only consistent one of the bunch, but he's the oldest and was the worst of the 3 last year.

Well, I did say there wasn't as much downside as some people suggest. I know there is some, but I think the benefits far outweigh that. Matching up with the staffs of Chicago and LAD is thinking way too far ahead IMO. You have to get there in the first place, and more LHB's helps you do that because you will face far more RHP's throughout the year. I also think there was a flukey quality to their struggles against LHP's. I see no reason they shouldn't be able to hit them well. And I'd take Marwin too, but I think he will get 2-3 times as many years and 3-4 times as much guaranteed money.

Don't care about Shaw at 2B and "too many LHB's" as I think those are not as much of a downside as some people suggest. This is the infielder solution I wanted all along, assuming he's much cheaper than Marwin Gonzalez. He's just better and/or younger than most of the other options that were available, and probably cheaper. As long as Shaw's okay with it, this would replace Perez/Spangenberg with Moose in the 7-hole. They still have too many 5-7 type hitters and not enough true top of the order guys, but that's a damn deep lineup if you think about it. Moose is also a great clubhouse fit, and I think chemistry is a small but important part of their success.

It would be just about impossible to separate Bud's influence from Horst's without being an insider. I think we have some clues though. Kidd lost a lot of personnel influence and Horst was gm for a full year before Bud, but the decision-making didn't improve much at all. Now it's clear that there's extremely high basketball intelligence somewhere in the organization making personnel decisions, and I think the only guy who's proven he has that is Bud. When Bud was hired, he described the type of basketball player he needed to build a successful team. Many people immediately noticed that he was describing the exact opposite of Jabari, and wouldn't you know it, the Bucks let Jabari walk for nothing a few weeks later. Didn't even try to arrange a sign-and-trade. This was after they reportedly passed on a chance to trade for Deandre Jordan at last year's deadline because the Clippers wanted Jabari in the deal. So the Bucks consistently failed to recognize Jabari for what he really was for 4 straight years, but then all of sudden saw through him as soon as they got Bud. I don't think that's a coincidence, and it's not a coincidence that they now have a great team with a roster that actually hasn't changed much because they recognize the importance of the right role players, glue guys, system guys, and bbiq.

There was a lot of smoke about Kidd losing personnel influence after some terrible decisions, including Mirza, Vazquez, and Dellavedova. They also kept signing/drafting guys with the same agent as Kidd regardless of talent or fit. It was clearly an agenda and it killed the Bucks for years. Then you have the period where I'm not sure there was any direction at all. This includes hiring Horst and not knowing who was in charge. Thorn was in the mix, Kidd was trying to get his way, Horst was suspected of being nothing but a yes-man, and the owners ultimately had the final say in decisions like foolishly keeping Parker's sorry behind until it was too late to get anything of value for him. It's uncanny how instantaneously decisions got better as soon as they got Bud. They were doing nothing to find the right fits (and move on quickly from bad fits) before Bud. He has a philosophy and vision and they're getting more and more guys that fit that vision. I don't think it would be a stretch to say that Bud has his hands on every single decision, like Belichick in New England.

There's no contradiction there. These are the rules now. We still want a title this year, even if we'd like to change some of the rules. Nobody's going to use a sub-optimal strategy to protest a rule out of spite. That was Jason Kidd's thing.

Those Wizards' picks are nice. I wouldn't sleep on what the Pelicans got out of this. Mirotic is just a rental. Will be very interesting to see who the Bucks try to retain this summer. Getting ahead of myself obviously, but this could be a great team for a while. Now trading Ersan's contract would help a lot.

No. That would be asking an awful lot. But a lot of those guys don't want to chase him all over the arc, and in this day and age that probably trumps low-post scoring.

I figured there had to be more. Mirotic is worth more than expiring contracts. I think DJ Wilson has been amazing and I hope he still gets his minutes. I honestly wouldn't doubt that he's one of the most valuable bigs in the entire league as early as next year. LRMAM level defense, possibly even quicker, with better size and a great 3-point stroke. That's insane. I could see Mirotic, Giannis, and Wilson playing together, as Wilson is quick enough to guard the entire half-court.

I didn't bring up anyone in that post, nor do I even remember who said the Bucks didn't make a ton of bad decisions. Brogdon's flaws are very different from Ingram's, Kuzma's, and Ball's. Just because he's slow and unathletic doesn't mean I have to like all players who aren't. All of them are kind of overrated for a variety of different reasons. Brogdon is the best of them, but that doesn't mean I want to have to match a Tyler Johnson offer sheet for him. It could be even worse than that.

Definitely. There was a lot of debate about his role with Chicago and the fight with Bobby Portis, but I think the huge boost he gave NO settled the debate once and for all about the value of a stretch forward who can also rebound and not be a liability on defense. NO literally got better by replacing Cousins with him when Cousins tore his Achilles right around the same time they got Nikola. That's not so much a knock on Cousins as it is a testament to Mirotic's ability to fit in perfectly next to a superstar big. I love Ersan but he looks done. This is a big boost.

I was gonna say it's weird that the Bucks have finalized the Johnson trade yet, but apparently they're making it a 3-team deal and getting Mirotic. Nice. I definitely thought that Mirotic and Moore were more realistic targets than Davis.

Brogdon should be traded because his value will never be this high again, and probably not even close. That's the emergency. That doesn't mean he's not better than Kuzma, Ingram, and Ball, who are basically the Lakers' young versions of Blue Edwards, scrawny unathletic Beasley, and non-brain-dead MCW. He still has a lot of value to other teams. Just stop replying to me though, seriously. You already tried to derail this thread once. ETA: It's your opinion of Ingram and Kuzma that's keeping you from understanding the point. They just aren't good.

That was more up-tempo basketball, fast breaks, etc. I think you also had good ball movement, with unselfish superstars like Magic and Bird setting the tone. I liked that brand of basketball too. It's not the high scoring I don't like; it's scoring so much on 3's and ft's that kind of bores me. There's a place for that, but it shouldn't dominate the game. I don't like how otherwise mediocre players and teams can overachieve just because of shooting. If Hakeem played today, he would probably have had to learn to shoot 5 3's a game and post up a lot less. That would be a tragic loss IMO. It also encourages guards to be chuckers. I don't want anything close to the 90's, but a think making 3's a little longer and cutting back on the ticky tack calls would reward/encourage more compelling basketball with more diverse approaches.

Teams have to use a roster spot on a LOOGY though. That's a pretty steep cost for the privilege of using a guy against one batter a few times a week. I hate the idea of restricting different strategy elements. The more different ways you can try to find any little advantage, the better. Let some teams have starters go 6+ innings while other teams go 3-4. Let some teams have all kinds of versatile bench players and use platoons while others go top-heavy with better everyday players. Don't be so damn overbearing about what you want the game to look like.