coolhandluke121

Keep as many guys as possible and be ready for a consolidation trade if a star becomes available. You gotta have good players on matching contracts, a big expiring contract or two, and some young guys that a team trading away its star would want to take a chance on. Yet another reason to keep Hill and not waive/stretch Leuer's contract. You can't guarantee there will be a Kawhi, Paul George, or Anthony Davis available in a trade, but it seems there's a guy or two like that (or at least close) almost every year lately.

I love Horford, but at his age and with the number of guys they would lose, I don't see any way it would be worth it. I very much doubt you'd get Hill with the room MLE. In fact, I don't think he'd clear waivers. I'm pretty sure a bad team with cap space and no free agency aspirations would claim him just to flip him to a contender for assets later. He is an asset on an expiring contract at $18m. He was literally the best PG in the East playoffs this season. Mirotic is another loss, and the room MLE is even lower than the tax-payer MLE so you'd have a hard time competing for the caliber of free agents that are looking for an MLE from a contender. And you obviously have to stretch Leuer. You can justify it with the immediate benefits, but Hawes and Sanders were justified for the same reasons and look how much we need a few million more in payroll flexibility now. Stretching Leuer is a terrible option IMO with a Giannis super-max looming and raises for young guys. So you're talking about losing Hill, Mirotic, and the full MLE for Horford. Again, I love him, but he wasn't even that much better than Hill in the playoffs this year. And all that is counting on Brogdon not to sign an offer sheet during the moratorium, even though it's in his best interest to do so.

Don't forget DiVincenzo. He was ahead of both of them when training camp ended, and I expect him to be again. I don't think his shooting struggles were any indication of what type of shooter he's going to be over the course of the career.

Oh sure, it's easy to say they should do this when you're talking about someone else's poo. Pretty obvious that the same people pushing for stuff like this would change their tune if it came to lighting their own poo on fire in deals like this though.

They got a pick swap from Chicago for taking John Salmons off their hands too. Your point stands though. Amazing that they didn't attempt moves like that more often considering how well it worked out when they acquired Dudley and Salmons (giving Salmons an extension that didn't work out was a separate issue). I supposed it's likely that they stretch Leuer, but at some point you have to stop kicking the can down the road. Also, his expiring contract, along with Ersan's and Hill's, could come in handy. In a vacuum, this is decent. Detroit basically paid about $14m for pick #30 ($2m difference this year + Snell's 2020-21 salary). That's a lot. I could have lived with Snell at 15 mpg, but this is a no-brainer considering the Bucks are at risk of being in cap hell.

The most they can give Lopez is the full MLE, which is about $9m. I mean, there are ways to create cap space and give him more, but it's pretty much absurd to consider because of how much talent they would have to lose. I want them to pay all the tax as well. That said, if Khris actually gets a 5-year max deal, even I would be willing to accept that the owners just can't pay that much luxury tax. I'm not convinced Lopez gets more than the MLE anywhere except maybe a bad team. He already had one max deal and I think the MLE keeps him in Milwaukee. He seems to like it, and the chemistry did a lot for his image. He has adjusted to the modern NBA better than most lumbering big men, but he's still a lumbering big man and those guys aren't getting paid these days. I think they should be able to keep everyone else if they let Khris walk. They need Hill as a back-up PG and potentially as a trade chip. His expiring contract is valuable to the Bucks or some other team. They need Lopez and they would have the full MLE for him if Khris walks. Brogdon and Mirotic will probably make a combined ~$35m next year. And you don't have to worry about wasting assets to unload Snell. I think that's the best compromise if Khris gets max offers.

Technically Hill's non-guaranteed salary is not the same as a team option. That means they actually have to waive him to save $17m. Letting Khris walk absolutely affects what they can offer others. With all the cap holds on everyone, they have to lose at least one key guy (and probably two) in order to stay below the luxury tax apron. Otherwise, they can use only the tax-payer MLE, which is about $3.5m less than the full MLE. In other words, letting Khris walk probably allows them to pay Lopez $3.5m more. It's real simple to me if Khris is getting max offers elsewhere and pushing the Bucks for the Bird Rights max. You let him walk because that could very well mean he's the only one of your "B" players you have to lose, as opposed to 2 or (god forbid) 3 of them. ETA: Letting Khris walk would also make it much easier to eventually get back under the tax threshold and save your BAE and full MLE for future seasons. You also probably wouldn't have to give up multiple assets to unload Snell. It's just much more sustainable.

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.

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! You can never make a trade that leaves you at risk of being without a first-round pick (yours or anyone else's) in two consecutive future drafts. If they make the trade official during the draft, it's not longer a future draft. The NBA is exceedingly complex because of how hard they try to manipulate outcomes. They should just have a hard cap and be done with it. It helps to understand why certain rules exist. An owner who's going to be dead in 5 years doesn't care about future drafts and will submarine the franchise for decades if allowed to.

I don't like the trade for New Orleans, but they had no leverage. They didn't do a good job surrounding AD with talent and now he's gone. Those are the breaks. This reminds me of the KG-to-Boston trade. Looks like a stockpile of assets on the surface, but one by one they all end up being poop. Not a fan of Ingram or Ball at all. I honestly think they're awful. Efficiency matters a lot. Those distant future picks could be okay, but I'm sure other stars force their way to LAL and make it unlikely.

I've always thought Peralta reminds me a little of K-Rod. Not the same arsenal obviously, but he has a similar way of keeping people guessing because of the movement on his fastball. He relies on guys to chase. Nobody knows where his pitches are going to end up, including him. I think that kind of stuff plays better out of the pen because his pitch count will be high at times.

Can't remember who was in here saying they would carry only 12 pitchers all year, and just 11 at times, but they acted like I knew nothing about baseball for saying they would go with 13 more often than not. Thank goodness the Brewers understand the importance of pitching depth or they'd be under .500 right now.

Live footage of Stearns on I-43 right now: http://

Really sucks that Aguilar sucks. Adam covered why this won't work, so that's all I have to add.

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I don't think they'll give that a chance to happen. Look at Santana last year, and his 2017 was every bit as good as Shaw's while having been a better hitting prospect to begin with. He's got options and they won't hesitate to use them if he isn't right by the time Hiura is past the estimated super-2 cutoff.

Khris isn't really that good in the half-court even though he likes to play slow. Their issue against Toronto was ball movement and not being quick enough to compete with Toronto's small-ball lineups. Khris doesn't help as much as Hill in either of those areas. Also, there's no rule that SF's have to be 6'8", especially not in this era. I don't like arguing against Khris because I've said many times I hope they just pay the tax and keep everyone. But if they do have to let one guy go, I think it should be the guy who will make roughly twice as much as any of the others. In the spring of 2016, I thought they had a Reggie Miller Lite, but he's turned into roughly another Glenn Robinson before our eyes. His season could not have been more blah, and if that's what he can do in a contract year, I fear what he'll do when he gets his salary doubled. Is there really any doubt that he'll be average 17-20 ppg on ~45/38 shooting with a few too many turnovers and inconsistent defensive effort wherever he ends up? Take Hill and Niko for example. Hill's already getting $1m, so it would take $17m more to keep him. Niko will probably get $12-15m. Combined that's up to $32m, which is still less than a max contract for Khris. And I'm not judging Niko on these playoffs no matter how fashionable it is. He barely played with the team at all this year, and it was a terrible decision to start him at SF and expose him in the most unfavorable match-ups possible. He's just one year removed from replacing all-NBA superstar Demarcus Cousins and making the Pelicans significantly better in the process, and there's no reason he can't have the same effect complementing Giannis unless you think his confidence is shot (which I doubt). And he's only about 6 months older than Khris. Just losing George Hill alone would arguably hurt them more in the short term than losing Khris. They really need him. He was the most composed player in the playoffs and the only guy who consistently rose to the occasion against the Toronto. You can tell he has a ton of experience and has been coached by some of the greats his whole career. The Bucks need that. And then you get his Bird Rights in 2020 so he can be their Ron Harper for another couple years, plus the full MLE for 3 years and the BAE again in 2021, all of which you lose if you make long-term commitments to everyone else. It's not just losing Khris outright when you consider that you can keep Niko and Hill at that price and then get back under the luxury tax to keep using the full MLE for several years. That adds up to a lot more flexibility. There's lot to lose by keeping Khris if it comes to that. I definitely don't want to lose Hill and Niko if it comes down to them or Khris. All year, there were 4 guys who all had a roughly equal chance of being the 2nd-best player on the team any given night (Bledsoe, Khris, Brogdon, Lopez) and then when Brogdon got hurt, Hill joined that group and even exceeded all of them in the playoffs. For the previous two years, Niko was good enough to be in that group too. Since they're all so close, there's no reason to lose two of them to keep one, if that's what it comes down to.

I would add Snell and Brown too. They might actually be the team's best shooters after Brogdon. Snell only shoots when he's wide open, but he's hit around 40% three years straight and he'll be wide open a lot playing with Giannis. They're stuck with him anyway, but he gives some serviceable minutes with Giannis, who brings out the best in him. Brown shot an astounding 45% on almost 300 3-point attempts in college. I don't even think they'd need to draft Khris's replacement, to be honest. And all of those guys except Snell are better at fast-paced, transition basketball than Khris. Khris loves a slow pace and that's always been a bit of an odd fit with Giannis. But again, being able to keep everyone else and get right back under the tax threshold after just one year would be a huge benefit. I'm kind of playing devil's advocate, but I'm talking myself into it at the same time. I would get a sinking feeling if they paid Khris 4/$140m to compete with some irresponsible offer by a desperate team.

Terry Stotts should have been picked 10 times over. I remember George Karl was furious about that, even though he stood to lose Stotts as an assistant. Then Stotts finally got a job and got shafted with lazy, selfish Redd, Magloire, and Mo plus a moody Bogut. Total side note, sorry. Incidentally, Kenny Atkinson is from the Bud coaching tree, and Bud is from the Pop coaching tree, so there is a lineage there that will likely continue.

I didn't hold it against him either. Gotta remember what happened to Grant Hill his last year in Detroit, with team doctors giving really bad advice about whether he should play on that injured ankle. It's b.s. that the Spurs said he should play and 10x worse the way so many people, even in the organization, questioned him on it. I wouldn't have stayed either. I also have this pet theory that they approached him about taking less than the max in an extension. They had a culture where guys took less and may have felt like they were expected to because Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili did. But that's just speculation. I feel like they may have devalued how much of a star he really was because the team was so egalitarian and team-oriented. It's okay to want people to be unselfish, but you don't ask a superstar to make unreasonable sacrifices.

One correction: I think Khris's max contract in a sign-and-trade may be 30% of the cap after all. I think it's just players who qualify for 30% despite having only 5 years experience (i.e. via various awards combinations) who have their max salary in a sign-and-trade reduced from 30% to 25%.

We've seen a lot of small markets have some of the highest payrolls over the past decade. OKC, Portland, and Cleveland have been near the top on several occasions. I'll grant that there's a limit but I would certainly hope they'll go into the top 5 in payroll. Most contenders do when it's necessary to keep the team together. It is unusual to have so many guys that need to be paid though. There's another argument in favor of Hill, and that is avoiding a long-term luxury tax commitment. The repeater tax is brutal, and it's not just about the rich owners' money. If you waive Hill and keep Khris, Lopez, Mirotic, and Brogdon, you're committed to a high tax bill for years. That means you lose the BAE, which is how you got Lopez in the first place, and you are stuck with the tax MLE every year. Giannis comes due for the super-max and you're in trouble. I think keeping, say, Mirotic, is worth the difference between the full MLE and the tax MLE for one year... but is it worth losing the full MLE every year and losing the BAE? The same thing applies even to Khris or Brogdon considering the wing depth they might have with Brown, DDV, and Pat C. I have nothing against Khris in terms of his value on the court (even though I've talked extensively about how I think he could be better), but if he gets 4/$140m from someone else, I could easily talk myself into being glad they can keep everyone else and get comfortably back under the luxury tax when Hill and Ersan are off the books. Just estimating, but I believe if they let Khris walk, they could probably use the full MLE every year for 3-4 years (plus use the BAE every other year during that time) before they go over the tax apron again, even with a super-max extension for Giannis. That's potentially appealing because there will be ring-chasers like Pau Gasol this year, only better, and because needs change and injuries happen, which the flexibility of the full MLE helps you address.

I went to realGM and confirmed that the Bucks lose Hill's Early Bird Rights if they waive him. Not that anyone is likely to change their opinion over that.

An .835 OPS as an LHB at Kauffmann is pretty good. More importantly, he was above average there for years (so no fluke), broke into the majors much younger than Shaw, and was significantly better in the minor leagues despite generally being much younger at every stop. The whole body of work for Shaw just isn't that great. He doesn't have nearly as long of a leash as some are assuming, nor should he.

Yeah but really I don't think anyone watching those last four games of that series can say the Bucks were the better team. Even the double OT game would have been a theft after having been outplayed almost the whole time. Just hit 3's and it's not even a series. Toronto didn't win because they were better; they won because their 3-point shots were independent of the state of their butt sphincters.