Bucks 2020 offseason thread

[owbc]

It sure feels like the Bucks are on the precipice of getting completely screwed over.

[worm81]

and the NBA would probably benefit from that.

[reillymcshane]

Robin Lopez reportedly is signing with Washington for one year at slightly less than the full mid-level exception of $9.258MM.

 

That's a pretty sweet deal for the guy.

 

https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2020/11/wizards-to-sign-robin-lopez.html

[homer]

Apparently the trade with New Orleans has been expanded to include a third team.

[reillymcshane]

Prices are going pretty high for most of the premium FAs and RFAs.

 

- Christian Wood 3 years/$41M.

- Joe Harris 4/$75M

- Jerimi Grant 3/$60M

- Davis Bertans 5/$80M

- Malik Beasley 4/$60M

- Danilo Gallinari 3/$61.5M

- Derek Favors 3/$27M

- Mason Plumlee 3/$25M

- Goran Dragic 2/$37.4M

 

Wes Matthews is going to the Lakers - 1 year/$3.6M - so he won't be back.

[Eye Black]

Per Woj: Free agent G Pat Connaughton has agreed to a two-year, $8.3M deal to return to the Milwaukee Bucks

 

Second year of the deal is a player option.

[reillymcshane]

One guy that might have worked for Milwaukee was Justin Holiday (Drue's brother). But he's back with the Pacers - 3-years/$18M.

 

One guy we might look at is point guard D.J. Augustin. He would be a solid playmaker behind Holiday. I doubt he's too expensive.

[HiAndTight]

Apparently the trade with New Orleans has been expanded to include a third team.

 

 

And now a FOUR team trade. I wonder if Justin Holliday is a part of that...maybe?

 

Steven Adams going back to the Pelicans. I'm still holding out some hope that the Kings end up in that trade with Bogdonavich.

 

The Bucks have to have some other options. Letting Matthews leave to LA but spending more on Connaughton...it just doesn't make a ton of sense to me unless they've got a plan to add a 4th option.

[reillymcshane]

From Adrian Wojnarowski

 

Interesting....

 

New Orleans and Milwaukee are expanding the original Jrue Holiday trade to include more teams and players, including the routing of Steven Adams to the Pelicans, sources tell ESPN. Talks are moving toward a possible four-team trade.

[HiAndTight]

From Adrian Wojnarowski

 

Interesting....

 

New Orleans and Milwaukee are expanding the original Jrue Holiday trade to include more teams and players, including the routing of Steven Adams to the Pelicans, sources tell ESPN. Talks are moving toward a possible four-team trade.

 

 

You have ANY hope that they may include the Kings in that trade?

 

I mean...apparently, Bogdan didn't want to move forward because he thought the trade would be voided and he'd be left out, but he hasn't signed yet and teams are using up their cap space.

 

At this point, just do some George Steinbrenner type moves and promise someone you'll pay them in the future. Trade for Bogdan, let him sign a 1 year 9.5 million dollar deal(or whatever) and then promise him a 4/80 the following off-season. Of course that wouldn't happen, but the Bucks are getting into some pretty dangerous territory here.

 

They're going to be worse in the regular season...which is fine. But if you don't get another player who's a shooter but who can also create a little bit, we could be in worse shape than we were last year with a tougher road to the finals this year.

[HiAndTight]

From Adrian Wojnarowski

 

Interesting....

 

New Orleans and Milwaukee are expanding the original Jrue Holiday trade to include more teams and players, including the routing of Steven Adams to the Pelicans, sources tell ESPN. Talks are moving toward a possible four-team trade.

 

 

Sounds like it just basically turned into the Bucks sending the 24th pick to OKC and they're sending Adams back to NOLA. Doesn't sound like there's anything else coming the Bucks way...

[Austin Tatious]

Connaughton seems like an overpay.

 

Maybe the Bucks are letting all the big contracts absorb aggregate cap space. Maybe they can get some bargains.

 

I would really like to see a wing come in who is nasty and tough on the defensive end. Need a backup point and a backup big.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Connaughton seems like an overpay.

 

Maybe the Bucks are letting all the big contracts absorb aggregate cap space. Maybe they can get some bargains.

 

I would really like to see a wing come in who is nasty and tough on the defensive end. Need a backup point and a backup big.

 

Bucks are reportedly signing Bobby Portis. Young (25), good size at 6'10", 250. Solid shooter, including good career numbers from 3. Not really a backup big or wing, but kind of a combo of those two.

 

Edit: Bucks apparently signing DJ Augustin as well. There's your backup PG.

[HiAndTight]

Connaughton seems like an overpay.

 

Maybe the Bucks are letting all the big contracts absorb aggregate cap space. Maybe they can get some bargains.

 

I would really like to see a wing come in who is nasty and tough on the defensive end. Need a backup point and a backup big.

 

Bucks are reportedly signing Bobby Portis. Young (25), good size at 6'10", 250. Solid shooter, including good career numbers from 3. Not really a backup big or wing, but kind of a combo of those two.

 

Edit: Bucks apparently signing DJ Augustin as well. There's your backup PG.

 

 

Two nice signings. Guys who thrive on bad teams and are not good defenders like Portis are always a little troubling, but he's still just 25, so maybe he thrives in this system.

 

Still like to see another SG brought in, but I don't know who's out there that'd be an upgrade or starting caliber 2. I'm sure there will be opportunities in season to add a contributor though.

[adambr2]

Augustin is basically going to fill the old George Hill role. Portis has some upside. Nice signings. I'm still disappointed about losing Bogdanovic but I will say I'm really happy to still have DDV and our bench is filling out a lot more nicely than it would be on the other route.

[reillymcshane]

If you had told me before the offseason that we'd swap Bledsoe/Hill/Lopez for Holiday/Augustin/Portis I'd have been happy with that.

 

But the excitement of adding Bogdanovic as well - and then the falling apart of the deal - just gives things an air of disappointment.

 

Still, I think this team is better than last year. Especially when we will be playing good teams.

[RollieTime]

If you had told me before the offseason that we'd swap Bledsoe/Hill/Lopez for Holiday/Augustin/Portis I'd have been happy with that.

 

But the excitement of adding Bogdanovic as well - and then the falling apart of the deal - just gives things an air of disappointment.

 

Still, I think this team is better than last year. Especially when we will be playing good teams.

 

All of this. Augustin should have a nice bounce back year this season and the addition of Portis is a big step up from Robin. I’m hoping we can still somehow work out a deal for Bogdanovic. If we could somehow pull that off, I would view the offseason moves as basically perfect given the circumstances.

[reillymcshane]

If you had told me before the offseason that we'd swap Bledsoe/Hill/Lopez for Holiday/Augustin/Portis I'd have been happy with that.

 

But the excitement of adding Bogdanovic as well - and then the falling apart of the deal - just gives things an air of disappointment.

 

Still, I think this team is better than last year. Especially when we will be playing good teams.

 

All of this. Augustin should have a nice bounce back year this season and the addition of Portis is a big step up from Robin. I’m hoping we can still somehow work out a deal for Bogdanovic. If we could somehow pull that off, I would view the offseason moves as basically perfect given the circumstances.

A Bogdanovic deal would be tough, but you never know in the NBA.

[HiAndTight]

If you had told me before the offseason that we'd swap Bledsoe/Hill/Lopez for Holiday/Augustin/Portis I'd have been happy with that.

 

But the excitement of adding Bogdanovic as well - and then the falling apart of the deal - just gives things an air of disappointment.

 

Still, I think this team is better than last year. Especially when we will be playing good teams.

 

All of this. Augustin should have a nice bounce back year this season and the addition of Portis is a big step up from Robin. I’m hoping we can still somehow work out a deal for Bogdanovic. If we could somehow pull that off, I would view the offseason moves as basically perfect given the circumstances.

 

 

It does make me wonder if there's still a chance since Bogdan hasn't signed an offer sheet yet. I didn't know you could do a sign and trade as part of a sign and trade, but Sterling Brown would give them a backup SG...certainly has more upside than Ersan. But we have his bird rights, but I don't know how it works with the hard cap. Both Portis and Augustin signed for relatively cheap.

 

That would make this just about the best possible off-season we could have dreamt up. I think DDV is going to become a really nice player, but everyone we have now, throw in Bogdan and we don't really lose that much from the bench, but the starting lineup would be awesome. Should be enough to entice Giannis to stick around. Should be enough anyway. And hopefully, with Jrue and DJ, the Bucks offense won't be 4 guys standing around while Giannis tries to take on the whole team.

 

 

Watching Wood develop almost instantly as soon as he left and got some playing time makes me even more disappointed in that Mirotic trade. I know he wasn't part of the trade, but he was waived in order to make that trade happen. Hopefully if this trade doesn't go through, we'll look back in 2 years and be thrilled we hung on to DiVincenzo.

[GAME05]

I don't know how a Bogdan trade is even possible without Ersan's salary in the mix anymore.

[reillymcshane]

I don't know how a Bogdan trade is even possible without Ersan's salary in the mix anymore.

A combination of Wilson ($4.5M), Donte ($3.0M) and Connaughton (probably around $5M or so) would get you close. That's $12.5M.

 

Bogdan looks like he's going to get around $17-18M a year. Let's say you start that around $16M - then give him increases each year.

 

The Bucks have to send back 75% of Bogdan's 2020-21 salary to the Kings. 75% of $16M is $12 -- so it is feasible.

 

Of course, the Kings would have to want Connaughton and his 3-year/$16M deal. And Bogdan would have to be willing to come to Milwaukee at the price noted. And let's not forget that the league might be signaling to the teams not to make such a deal or risk tampering charges.

 

And it all assumes I'm interpreting NBA salary cap rules correctly - never a sure thing.

[Eye Black]

I admittedly haven’t followed the NBA closely for a long time, however I have followed this NBA offseason. For college basketball I follow Ken Pom, and was wondering if there is a similar resource for the NBA. I know in the past publicly available analytics and efficiency data for NBA players was somewhat difficult to come by since the teams hired those people and kept the information proprietary. My question for this group is whether there are any reliable sources you use for evaluating player value (such as value above replacement)?

 

One of the reasons I am asking is I read through John Hollinger’s free agent material, and he was using a player ranking/valuation system he named “BORG”. He says BORG is a player value ranking (value above replacement) which he says is a combination of the following three systems: 1) The multiyear version of Jacob Goldstein’s PI-PM method; 2) Nate Silver’s Raptor; 3) Hollinger’s own Player Efficiency Rating (PER) over the previous two seasons, weighted by minutes and weighing 2019-20 twice as much. He then used his BORG above replacement values to transform into assigning salary dollar value to members of this year’s free agent class. For Bogdan Bogdanovic for instance he assigned $13.482 million as his current per season value. The next closest shooting guard after Bogdan was Evan Fournier at $13 million.

 

Anyway, I was sort of fascinated with understanding more, but unfortunately Hollinger hasn’t shared the full database of his information. He did however make reference to his BORG system in an article immediately after it appeared the Bogdan trade was going to move forward earlier this week:

 

 

DiVincenzo’s iffy shooting (31.8 percent career) made him a tough fit on a Milwaukee team that needs spacers around Antetokounmpo. But in a vacuum, I really like him. The 23-year-old fills the stat sheet with rebounds, blocks and steals and should thrive in an athletic backcourt with DeAaron Fox. Even for this coming season, BORG likes DiVincenzo (3.73 points above replacement) better than Bogdanovic (2.28 points above).

I thought that was curious at least since the general sentiment seems to be that Bogdanovic is the far superior player to Donte. I don’t know enough about the inputs into Hollinger’s player value system to know if it has any merits at all, but would enjoy learning more about other sources of NBA player values if they exist.

[HiAndTight]

I admittedly haven’t followed the NBA closely for a long time, however I have followed this NBA offseason. For college basketball I follow Ken Pom, and was wondering if there is a similar resource for the NBA. I know in the past publicly available analytics and efficiency data for NBA players was somewhat difficult to come by since the teams hired those people and kept the information proprietary. My question for this group is whether there are any reliable sources you use for evaluating player value (such as value above replacement)?

 

One of the reasons I am asking is I read through John Hollinger’s free agent material, and he was using a player ranking/valuation system he named “BORG”. He says BORG is a player value ranking (value above replacement) which he says is a combination of the following three systems: 1) The multiyear version of Jacob Goldstein’s PI-PM method; 2) Nate Silver’s Raptor; 3) Hollinger’s own Player Efficiency Rating (PER) over the previous two seasons, weighted by minutes and weighing 2019-20 twice as much. He then used his BORG above replacement values to transform into assigning salary dollar value to members of this year’s free agent class. For Bogdan Bogdanovic for instance he assigned $13.482 million as his current per season value. The next closest shooting guard after Bogdan was Evan Fournier at $13 million.

 

Anyway, I was sort of fascinated with understanding more, but unfortunately Hollinger hasn’t shared the full database of his information. He did however make reference to his BORG system in an article immediately after it appeared the Bogdan trade was going to move forward earlier this week:

 

 

DiVincenzo’s iffy shooting (31.8 percent career) made him a tough fit on a Milwaukee team that needs spacers around Antetokounmpo. But in a vacuum, I really like him. The 23-year-old fills the stat sheet with rebounds, blocks and steals and should thrive in an athletic backcourt with DeAaron Fox. Even for this coming season, BORG likes DiVincenzo (3.73 points above replacement) better than Bogdanovic (2.28 points above).

I thought that was curious at least since the general sentiment seems to be that Bogdanovic is the far superior player to Donte. I don’t know enough about the inputs into Hollinger’s player value system to know if it has any merits at all, but would enjoy learning more about other sources of NBA player values if they exist.

 

 

I wonder if DD playing in a system where he was getting a lot of open looks(and a superior defensive system) while Bogdan didn't have the benefit of playing with Giannis can account for the gap between the two.

 

Or maybe they're just looking at DD and seeing the jump he took from his rookie season to his second season and they believe he'll to develop into the Bucks poor man Manu.

[HiAndTight]

If you had told me before the offseason that we'd swap Bledsoe/Hill/Lopez for Holiday/Augustin/Portis I'd have been happy with that.

 

But the excitement of adding Bogdanovic as well - and then the falling apart of the deal - just gives things an air of disappointment.

 

Still, I think this team is better than last year. Especially when we will be playing good teams.

 

All of this. Augustin should have a nice bounce back year this season and the addition of Portis is a big step up from Robin. I’m hoping we can still somehow work out a deal for Bogdanovic. If we could somehow pull that off, I would view the offseason moves as basically perfect given the circumstances.

A Bogdanovic deal would be tough, but you never know in the NBA.

 

 

Do you take anything from the fact that he hasn't yet signed with a team despite all the rumors? I just read an article from a Hawks beat writer that said they feel confident he'll choose Atlanta over Milwaukee.

 

Do this whole trade failing really just come down to some idiot leaking the proposal and then Bogdan getting nervous they would eventually nix the deal for tampering?

 

If so, that would be the third pretty big error by the front office in the last ~18 months. They could have Christian Wood and Malcolm Brogdon on this roster as it stands. Wood, I get, he was a late-developing player(and was waived after leaving the Bucks). Still, you can't afford to lose that type of talent...talent that would fit in perfectly in Milwaukee.

 

And Brogdon would have given you another really nice shooter for the playoffs...where he was sorely missed and right now being able to flip that deal.

 

 

Anyway, the Bucks did sign a couple of guys to a two-way deal. Mamadi Diakite is a pretty interesting candidate. He's only played for 6 years now. An elite defender who can defend on the perimeter and be a rim protector. Also shot 36 from 3 last year. Sounds a little like Siakam.

[Eye Black]

Pretty scathing take on the Bucks mismanagement of their cap this weekend (from The Athletic):

 

Bucks score another salary cap own goal

 

While you were all talking about Gordon Hayward (my initial thoughts are under separate cover here and I’ll have more on this in the morning), the Milwaukee Bucks were busy making a fraught free agency weekend take another bad turn.

 

As I mentioned in an earlier missive, the Bucks originally agreed to a two-year, $8 million deal with Pat Connaughton that included a second-year player option. Only one problem: As an Early Bird Rights player, Connaughton wasn’t eligible to receive a second-year player option on his deal.

 

As a result, the Bucks (almost certainly) would have had to go back to his agent with hat in hand and request a different arrangement. That’s why a new arrangement for Connaughton was reported later this afternoon. This time they ended up paying twice as much money, to do a three-year deal worth $16 million.

 

Wait, it gets worse. Despite the error, the Bucks didn’t even need to do the second part. They could have signed Connaughton to the original with their mid-level exception. Yes, they had already agreed to a sign D.J. Augustin to a three-year, $21-million deal with their mid-level exception, but this was also unnecessary.

 

Augustin’s contract, as it turns out, would have fit snugly into the Jrue Holiday trade with New Orleans as a sign-and-trade if they had either A) started him slightly lower at $6.33 million (for a three-year deal worth $19.5 million or B) included two-way Cam Reynolds in a sign-and-trade back as part of the deal.

 

They would have had to work out a sign-and-trade with Orlando, but doing so would have been favorable to the Magic as well, generating a $7 million trade exception for the Magic. (Indeed, it is equally bizarre that the Magic did not pursue this angle with more vigor.) Orlando would have just needed to send the rights to Janis Timma to New Orleans to complete this, and if they needed cash to pay Reynolds’ salary they could have asked nicely and got it. Doing it this way would have hard-capped the Bucks, but using their full mid-level exception hard capped them anyway, so no loss.

 

Of course, the bigger issue is that they shouldn’t have stepped in it in Connaughton’s deal in the first place. This is part of a worrying free agency trend in Milwaukee. Last offseason they missed out on generating a $10 million trade exception from the Malcolm Brogdon sign-and-trade (think that might have been useful this week?) by not distributing George Hill’s guaranteed money slightly differently or using incentives on his or Brook Lopez’s contract. And a week ago, of course, they (or others involved) botched the sign-and-trade with Bogdan Bogdanovic when news of it leaked out inappropriately early.

 

None of this is necessarily a death knell for the Bucks: They had the NBA’s best record the past two seasons. But if they’re going to maximize the prime years of Giannis Antetokoumnpo and Khris Middleton, they can’t keep leaving money on the table when they manage the cap.