Milwaukee Bucks 2018 - 2019

[adambr2]

Can anyone explain why Brook Lopez came to Milwaukee for so cheap?

 

He was a 20M+ a year guy up until this year. He's not ancient, and it's not like he was bad last year.

 

I don't really understand the nuances of how NBA salaries work, but that one is baffling to me.

[wallus]

Can anyone explain why Brook Lopez came to Milwaukee for so cheap?

 

He was a 20M+ a year guy up until this year. He's not ancient, and it's not like he was bad last year.

 

I don't really understand the nuances of how NBA salaries work, but that one is baffling to me.

 

I think it is the idea that he might get played off the court in the playoffs. I am really happy to have him obviously.

[young guns]

Are any of you watching the Bucks/Hornets game right now on Fox Sports Wisconsin? We cannot tonight because it is buffering like crazy on our Sling Box.

I didn't have any issues watching on my tablet with YouTube tv. Though last week Saturday I couldn't go more than a few seconds with long buffers between before ultimately giving up.

[young guns]

Hate these weird back to backs.

[Pugger]

Hate these weird back to backs.

 

Why would the league create such a schedule? The worst part about this one was the Spurs were well rested. They haven't played since last Wednesday.

[coolhandluke121]

Reading Kerr's lips in a remark to assistant coach Mike Brown: "I'm so **** sick of Draymond's ****."

 

Kerr after the fact, trying to defuse the situation: "What I said was 'I beg to differ with Draymond's approach tonight.' Those were my exact words." Dude has a good sense of humor, and kudos for him for not denying it in any kind of way that people might believe.

 

I like this alternative interpretation: "I'm so finding out about dry mount sheets."

[OnTheBlack]

 

I said......Long Term Financial Health. I am not saying "do not sign KM". I am saying "don't sign him to a stupid contract".

 

You said.....I very much doubt Khris gets a max deal

 

I equate Stupid Contract with Max Deal. Do you think a Max Deal for KM would be a Stupid Contract for the Bucks? What do you think is a reasonable contract for KM should be?

 

Homer mentioned max deals. That post had nothing to do with you. I would not give him a max deal.

 

Even so, long-term financial health is just money in the owners' pockets. If you really understand the CBA, you understand that. It has almost nothing to do with payroll flexibility. You have the right to spend a lot of money on Khris or not spend it at all. There's no "I'd rather spend it on someone else", and there probably won't be for many years. It would be a question of letting Khris walk on principle and starting a much worse player instead.

 

I don't think you have to give him more than 4/$100m, which is fair. I'd probably explore other options if it gets around 4/$120m. And to be clear, if I'm starting a team from scratch, no way I'd give him either of those contracts, but the context could not be more diametrically opposed to starting from scratch right now.

 

 

Right, the only alternative is to save money, but not money that's going to end up going to another player, just money that will save the owners with regard to the luxury tax. Giannis is HOPEFULLY going to get a 5 year 250 million dollar deal(somewhere in that range unless for some reason the best young talent the Bucks have had since the early 70's decides he loves Milwaukee so much he'll take a discount).

 

Even if we were able to unload the Snell and Ersan deals, we won't have money to sign someone as talented as Middleton in the near future and we have traded away most of our draft picks for the foreseeable future.

 

I think all those circumstances kinda force the Bucks to do what it takes to sign Middleton. There is definitely a risk that we end up in a Cavs like situation where they had high paid players who had little trade value, but the risk I'm MORE worried about is that we lose our 2nd best player as of now and risk losing the franchise player in Giannis.

 

 

Of course using your logic, I'd also sign Brogdon for 4 years and up to 50 million per year as I think that's a contract you could trade in the future as well.

 

Given how Horst stole Mirotic, maybe he'll be able to package Snell and Ersan this off-season for some more back court depth.

 

Edit-I didn't realize Ersan's 3rd year was not guaranteed. He may actually have some value to the Bucks next year at the deadline or even this off-season.

[OnTheBlack]

Can anyone explain why Brook Lopez came to Milwaukee for so cheap?

 

He was a 20M+ a year guy up until this year. He's not ancient, and it's not like he was bad last year.

 

I don't really understand the nuances of how NBA salaries work, but that one is baffling to me.

 

 

Did the Lakers even make an effort to sign him to a one year deal? He'd have been a good fit with them. I understand if they didn't want to give him a multi year deal and I understand them letting Randle walk as well, but I'm with you, I don't understand Lopez signing for so cheap with the Bucks. It's not like the Bucks were coming off a season like the current one.

 

Love that we have him though and while I like Ersan, I wish we could find someone to take him off our hands and slide Brook into that MLE. That's probably fair for him at this point in his career.

 

And maybe after the Nets gave him a max deal, he's more interested in playing for a winner for the next few years, playing reduced minutes and extending his career?

 

The situation the Bucks are in, they need a guy like Lopez who wants to stay on a cheaper deal and they need to get lucky and hopefully find an athletic big that can develop with what will hopefully be the final pick of the first round....as unlikely as that may be. Was hoping Thon would go the Giannis route and add bulk and develop, but that obviously didn't happen.

[superfly]

I don't know why its up for debate to sign Middleton anymore. Pay the man market value and move on with life...we know what he is, either fork out the 30 million on him or youre going to be paying -30 million for 3 or 4 garbage rotation players like Ersan. How is this even an issue at this point? It's a no brainer to me.

 

And I am by no means a Middleton apologist, he has his flaws just as much as the next guy with his skill set.

[OnTheBlack]

I don't know why its up for debate to sign Middleton anymore. Pay the man market value and move on with life...we know what he is, either fork out the 30 million on him or youre going to be paying -30 million for 3 or 4 garbage rotation players like Ersan. How is this even an issue at this point? It's a no brainer to me.

 

And I am by no means a Middleton apologist, he has his flaws just as much as the next guy with his skill set.

 

 

I think the issue people are having is that you're going to be overpaying Middleton. Even people who fully understand that it's not like the Brewers where you are talking about giving a fringe all star player 25 million per year, you're backed into a corner.

 

It just seems unnatural to advocate signing a player for more than you believe he's worth, especially when the extra 5 million per year could end up costing them an extra 15 million a year with the luxury tax in the future.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Middleton is going to get huge money from the Bucks or somebody else. I thought the Bledsoe extension was a little odd with Middleton unsigned.

[Outlander]

Probably hedged their bets a bit thinking Bledsoe would get a bigger offer in free agency. Doesn't really stop them from paying Middleton if they want him.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Yeah, it still really surprised me. Good, unique type of player so it was hard to be too concerned, but it definitely caught me off guard.

 

As far as Middleton, I think he's a guy where the positives are mutual if he stays in MKE. I don't think he can be better anywhere else and I think he's worth more to the Bucks than anyone.

[FVBrewerFan]

I doubt signing Bledsoe first was the plan. My guess is they're simultaneously trying to extend all these guys, and Bledsoe was the first to accept. With others, maybe they don't want to deal with it during the season, the offer isn't seen as good enough yet, or they may want to test FA no matter what. It takes two to tango, and Bledsoe was the fist to dance.

[tmwiese55]

The Middleton contract situation was described pages ago, due to his player option they basically can't extend him now without it being super low for him. Doing Bledsoe when they did lowered his cap hold htis offseason so it will help resign others, especially Lopez. Combine that with him having bad knees and it made perfect sense for both sides.

 

Brog is a RFA so no need to sign him now as it would mess up their cap as FA opens. Lopez doesn't have bird rights so also complicates cap. Niko just joined the team.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

I assumed Lopez was as good as gone. Or if he is retained, Middleton is gone. I can't see all of those guys being kept around.

[tmwiese55]

It is totally feasible to keep every player as long as the owners are willing to pay the tax. If they sign everyone and are able to move Ersan/Snell's contracts they could also get under the tax (of course depending on what Niko/KM get). Lopez is the X factor if someone did offer him a stupid contract, but i don't think anyone will and what Bledsoe just did freed up like 5 mil extra for Lopez.

[coolhandluke121]

It is totally feasible to keep every player as long as the owners are willing to pay the tax. If they sign everyone and are able to move Ersan/Snell's contracts they could also get under the tax (of course depending on what Niko/KM get). Lopez is the X factor if someone did offer him a stupid contract, but i don't think anyone will and what Bledsoe just did freed up like 5 mil extra for Lopez.

 

I don't think that's right. The most they can pay Lopez is the mid-level exception. If they're over the luxury tax threshold, their MLE will only be about $5m. He's on a 1-year deal, so they don't have full Bird Rights to pay over the cap to re-sign him. The days of guys like Lopez getting huge deals are probably long gone, but I'm pretty sure he could get a lot more than the tax-payer MLE - and he wouldn't necessarily have to go to a bad situation to get that.

 

Bledsoe might have freed up about $3m for Lopez in the sense that Bledsoe's 2019-2020 salary is a little lower than expected and therefore they're less likely to pay the luxury tax next year, meaning they would have the full MLE (over $8m) instead of the tax-payer MLE for Lopez.

 

What I'm not clear on is what would happen if they want to offer the full MLE to Lopez but then Brogdon signs an offer sheet that would put them in the tax-payer MLE zone. I wouldn't think they're forced to wait for Brogdon's offer sheet (restricted free agency can drag on for months) before they can make a full MLE offer to Lopez, and I don't think the cap holds on Khris, Brogdon, Mirotic, a draft pick, and the MLE itself (yes, that has a cap hold as well) will put them in the tax-payer zone. So maybe a huge August offer sheet for Brogdon, which the Bucks subsequently match, doesn't affect their MLE until 2020-2021? I really don't know.

[tmwiese55]

Could be wrong of course. I was thinking of it from the procedural that they'll just have to Lopez first and thought now they'd be under the cap enough since Bled salary is lower than his hold to make him a reasonable offer like idk 8-10. Then proceed to pay their guys to go over the cap and tax. I also could be not including/remembering that maybe Ers/Snell would have to go first to be under the cap rather than needing exception. Yea, not sure.

[coolhandluke121]

Could be wrong of course. I was thinking of it from the procedural that they'll just have to Lopez first and thought now they'd be under the cap enough since Bled salary is lower than his hold to make him a reasonable offer like idk 8-10. Then proceed to pay their guys to go over the cap and tax. I also could be not including/remembering that maybe Ers/Snell would have to go first to be under the cap rather than needing exception. Yea, not sure.

 

They will be well over the cap with all the cap holds. They can't give Lopez more than the MLE if they're over the cap (or ~120% of his current salary, which is even less than the MLE). He's not like Mirotic or Middleton, who have full Bird Rights coming off multi-year deals. It's basically to prevent teams from using 1-year deals as a loophole to get full Bird Rights and circumvent the salary cap. I guess they figured they already give teams enough tricks to get around the cap.

[tmwiese55]

Yea I know how bird rights work as to why I was talking about going Lopez first before them. I just had it in my head they'd have some space below before signing everyone and that Bled helped more with Brogdon's cap hold being so low. Maybe not even if they clear Snell/Ers though so it's just exception for Brook then. And maybe I had seen that pre having Niko's cap hold as well (or I'm just straight up misremembering).

 

Still, getting Niko was perfect insurance on the one guy who has some resign issues in Lopez due to no bird rights. If you lose Brook, Niko becomes a no brainer to keep then. It's debatable if you need both, it's not my money so I pay anyway but I see the discussion.

[coolhandluke121]

There's not really any cap space of consequence with Bledsoe's 2019-2020 salary now officially on the books and with Khris's cap hold. There is some, but I'm pretty sure it's less than the MLE... and you'd have to renounce the MLE to use that cap space anyway. Sounds like something you calculated without Mirotic's cap hold.

 

Assuming you keep Khris's cap hold, your options are to have slightly less than the MLE in cap space, or to have the MLE itself and keep Mirotic's cap hold. Why renounce the MLE and Mirotic's cap hold just to free up cap space that amounts to less than the MLE? Even if you unload Snell or Ersan, you're still not winning that trade-off. If you unload both of them, maybe... but is setting aside that much money for Lopez really better than having Mirotic while still keeping the MLE to use on a replacement for Lopez?

 

Frankly I still think you can make a case for throwing all notions of cap space to the wind and picking up Hill's option too. He doesn't impress at first sight, but his so-called intangibles are good. I think they've missed him a lot since he's been out, and I don't think they have an adequate replacement.

[Pugger]

It was damn impressive for the Bucks to come back from a 23 point deficit on the road.

[DuWayne Steurer]

According to ESPN, that was the first time in NBA history that a team came back from 20 points down at the half and won a game by 15 points on the road

[nate82]

Brogdon out 6-8 weeks.

 

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/nba-injury-update-bucks-malcolm-brogdon-could-miss-first-round-of-playoffs-with-plantar-fascia-tear-per-report/