Bucks News, Trade Ideas, Transactions - Nwora in protocols

[WRau1]

Didn't you literally just say if he took less money he'd be here?

I literally just said that Tucker isn't here for a reason and it isn't because the owners are cheap. Clearly they are willing to spend based on the multiple moves we've made this offseason.

Well no, you literally said "it wasn't the owners trying to save money" when saying that if he accepted less money he'd be here. They were literally trying to save money on a contract from him that he just went and got elsewhere.

Like obviously I do agree they aren't "cheap". They're paying a ton of money for an NBA roster. I do think they "cheaped out" on Tucker though given the circumstances.

There's a huge difference between being cheap and paying someone what you feel their worth is. I'm not cheap but I'm not going to pay someone $300 to detail my car when I can get it done exactly the same for $180.

[soxperry]

I think we let pj go for the right reasons.

I mean.. he's 36. It would have been easy to re sign him. It feels good, but ive been a sports fan long enough to have seen this move many, many times. Youre always upset at first but its not long before it becomes very obvious that the old guy doesn't have it anymore.

[Daver]

I heard it aasnt exactly 7 million if they signed him they lose portis plus it would of been more like 30 million for tucker with the penalty isnt that correct

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

As everyone knows, father time is actually winless.

I disputed the fact that he was a 10th man not that he wouldn't eventually retire. 2 year 14 million is chump change in the modern nba anyways.

No, 2 years 14 million is not "chump change" given the context of the situation we're looking at. There's this weird sentiment going around that the owners should pay whatever to keep the championship aspirations alive and yadda yadda yadda. While that's fine to an extent, if your window, in ANY way moving forward, hinges upon the contributions of PJ Tucker, you've got bigger fish to fry.

We just signed Wes Matthews off the street. You'd have a very hard time convincing me that the difference between the two is 25+ million.

Yeah, I don't think people realize how much money that is. I get they got a sweetheart deal when they bought the team and will cash out, but that money is already theirs in the owners' minds. No one is gonna be like that's cool, I have enough money, go ahead and drop $30m on a guy who might be out of our rotation by March. I'm a lower level season ticket holder. My tickets were $3k. They would have to fill half the stadium for a whole year just to have the revenue (not profit) to cover the cost of PJ. AND THAT IS JUST YEAR 1. Someone else posted how are roster is f-ed already with $150m committed. And you want to add another $7m on top for PJ?

Honestly, I'm a little concerned about in 2 years when were are at $150m+, in the repeater, and Jrue is a couple years older. Are we still a contender at that point? I could see the owners and Giannis being like, hell it was a fun run but we need to blow it up. It's not just being cheap, but recognizing the reality. We could be restrained with the roster, a treadmill non-contender, and paying $200m in salary and tax while in Milwaukee. It's just won't be sustainable.

[emunney]

No, it obviously doesn't make him a starter in the sense you're trying to make it out to be. Portis started a few games when Giannis was out in the ECF, I guess that makes him a starter in a championship team now, too. I'm willing to bet that if Tucker would've accepted a 1yr/$4mil deal like Bobby did, Tucker would likely still be a Buck.

The team actually, in reality, won 3 playoff series with him as the starter and playing heavy minutes, including the last two games of the ECF without Giannis, and it matters to you that he wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for injury? Big ass asterisk on Lou Gehrig's career I guess.

The thing about expanding the definition to include Portis is that we kept Portis. Did anybody want Portis to walk? Would anybody have been happy if he was playing elsewhere on a 2/14 deal?

You can keep playing your what if games but context matters. Portis is here and Tucker isn't, clearly there's a reason for that and it wasn't the owners trying to save money.

I'm playing what if games? Only because I'm playing with you.

-- If Donte wouldn't have gotten injured, PJ wouldn't have started
-- If PJ would have accepted Portis' contract, he'd still be there (to be fair, you've already forgotten you said this)

I'm not living in a subjunctive reality. I'm living in the reality where we played PJ heavy minutes (and started him, but this is trivial), where he was one of seven regular rotation players when we won a title. This actually happened. For real. Meanwhile you're dealing in counterfactuals.

[Baddy Chuck]

There's a huge difference between being cheap and paying someone what you feel their worth is. I'm not cheap but I'm not going to pay someone $300 to detail my car when I can get it done exactly the same for $180.

But also in this scenario, you couldn't get the job done for $180. You refused to pay $300 and now you have to have the crackheads rub your windshield with newspaper.

[emunney]

I disputed the fact that he was a 10th man not that he wouldn't eventually retire. 2 year 14 million is chump change in the modern nba anyways.

No, 2 years 14 million is not "chump change" given the context of the situation we're looking at. There's this weird sentiment going around that the owners should pay whatever to keep the championship aspirations alive and yadda yadda yadda. While that's fine to an extent, if your window, in ANY way moving forward, hinges upon the contributions of PJ Tucker, you've got bigger fish to fry.

We just signed Wes Matthews off the street. You'd have a very hard time convincing me that the difference between the two is 25+ million.

Yeah, I don't think people realize how much money that is. I get they got a sweetheart deal when they bought the team and will cash out, but that money is already theirs in the owners' minds. No one is gonna be like that's cool, I have enough money, go ahead and drop $30m on a guy who might be out of our rotation by March. I'm a lower level season ticket holder. My tickets were $3k. They would have to fill half the stadium for a whole year just to have the revenue (not profit) to cover the cost of PJ. AND THAT IS JUST YEAR 1. Someone else posted how are roster is f-ed already with $150m committed. And you want to add another $7m on top for PJ?

Honestly, I'm a little concerned about in 2 years when were are at $150m+, in the repeater, and Jrue is a couple years older. Are we still a contender at that point? I could see the owners and Giannis being like, hell it was a fun run but we need to blow it up. It's not just being cheap, but recognizing the reality. We could be restrained with the roster, a treadmill non-contender, and paying $200m in salary and tax while in Milwaukee. It's just won't be sustainable.

Nobody's sufficiently answered why you're willing to carry enough water for these dudes to float the extra yacht they'll buy with that salary savings. Nobody's saying it's not a lot of money. But why do YOU care about it? Why are YOU willing to defend the action in this context? What does the basketball team we all root for gain when Mallory Edens bedazzles her McLaren?

[emunney]

I accept but don't agree with the basketball argument for dropping PJ. The salary argument can go **** itself in a burning house.

[Baddy Chuck]

Honestly, I'm a little concerned about in 2 years when were are at $150m+, in the repeater, and Jrue is a couple years older. Are we still a contender at that point? I could see the owners and Giannis being like, hell it was a fun run but we need to blow it up. It's not just being cheap, but recognizing the reality. We could be restrained with the roster, a treadmill non-contender, and paying $200m in salary and tax while in Milwaukee. It's just won't be sustainable.

I would make the argument that this exact situation we're in right now only strengthens the argument for giving out a deal like Tucker right now.

We've spent years of the ownership group cutting corners, limiting trades that improve the team, trading away players that helped the team and punting picks to avoid the luxury tax. Giannis was a 2x MVP on a team that was unwilling to dip their toes into the luxury tax for **** sake.

Unfortunately(I guess?) with Jrue's incentives now we've plunged into the tax and the timebomb has started for the repeater tax to come into play. We have two seasons before the real nightmare begins. We have 2 seasons before continuing to field a roster as talented as we can moves from a burden to an almost impossibility.

Our window is now. We're fresh off a championship. We have a superstar in his his prime. We're not in repeater hell. We're an aging roster around a core that probably only has a couple seasons left in contention. Our ability to add onto this roster with our assets, salary and whatever else is severely limited. The guy we're arguing about is fresh off playing 30 minutes a game at the highest level of competition there is in basketball.

I get it. He's 36. He costs us money. Boo hoo.

[GHOSTofSIKMA]

i think the guys upset about losing pj are operating under the old herb kohl mentality where we had to overpay the old guy to stay because we didnt have the other value options that present themselves annually for other contenders.

now we have mega options. we get wes and cousins for peanuts. neither one of those guys comes here if we arent in the situation we are. we havent even seen buyout candidates yet but we know theyre inbound too.

the backend of our bench was so weak it almost seems like it was intentional. not grabbing best available in the summer might have been calculated knowing what would present itself later.

the idea we would back up a brinks truck with gauranteed cash on tucker to cock block minutes on a multitude of better players on the minimum coming in later makes no sense whatsoever. signing tucker and not playing him could have even backfired in the lockerroom. none of us really know how that weighed in either. we traded for him as a malcontent and you can be damn sure if he was getting dnps that was going to be an issue here.

i inititally wanted to bring him back as a salary slot for one year. like hit him for 10-12 million on a one year deal. go year by year and keep that trade value high keeping him on an expiring. he wanted that multi year thing and for me thats a poison pill. im glad we didnt do it

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

Nobody's sufficiently answered why you're willing to carry enough water for these dudes to float the extra yacht they'll buy with that salary savings. Nobody's saying it's not a lot of money. But why do YOU care about it? Why are YOU willing to defend the action in this context? What does the basketball team we all root for gain when Mallory Edens bedazzles her McLaren?

Hedge-fund billionaires suck. Ok cool. We agree. Have you ever worked in corp america? Even if its necessary, the owners/execs aren't going to pay for everything that needs to be done at a plant. You have to pick your battles and show the best return.

Now that we agree the owners suck and in reality aren't going to put in 8-9 figures extra to have the best roster possible.... What do we do about our roster with our constraints? If it's me, I'm not signing PJ to that contract. Seems like a bad idea to invest that much, if we go all out this year with PJ adding $30m and we end up losing to the Nets in 2nd round. Then what? Think Horst can go back to the owners and be like year we need to go even more into the tax, sorry about PJ guess he wasn't what we needed.

[GHOSTofSIKMA]

I accept but don't agree with the basketball argument for dropping PJ. The salary argument can go **** itself in a burning house.

simply having him on the roster on a multi year gauranteed deal would have forced us to play him. or do you disagree with that?

if you want to give his minutes/ roster slot to somebody else than the basketball argument is the only argument. spending money to intentionally set up slow motion sign and trades on future malcontents is not something i would expect our owners to consider as an acceptable business model.

[TroyD92]

I guess I live in an alternate reality where 14 million over two years is a lot of money in the NBA.

[WRau1]

There's a huge difference between being cheap and paying someone what you feel their worth is. I'm not cheap but I'm not going to pay someone $300 to detail my car when I can get it done exactly the same for $180.

But also in this scenario, you couldn't get the job done for $180. You refused to pay $300 and now you have to have the crackheads rub your windshield with newspaper.

Says who? We're 30 games into the season and so far it looks like when healthy, we're the best roster in the league.

[buckbeer]

I think Cousins will be this season's Tucker for the Bucks.

Really like the Cousins signing, I wanted him last season as well.

[Ron Swanson]

I accept but don't agree with the basketball argument for dropping PJ. The salary argument can go **** itself in a burning house.

simply having him on the roster on a multi year gauranteed deal would have forced us to play him. or do you disagree with that?

Why? Dude was completely fine with being load-managed every other game and getting his 19 minutes off the bench just 6 months ago. Hell, everyone including PJ knows that the the regular season isn't what you brought him in for, but the irony is that we definitely could have used him as a ~25ish minutes starter over the past 15-20 games with how injury riddled the roster has been.

[WRau1]

The team actually, in reality, won 3 playoff series with him as the starter and playing heavy minutes, including the last two games of the ECF without Giannis, and it matters to you that he wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for injury? Big ass asterisk on Lou Gehrig's career I guess.

The thing about expanding the definition to include Portis is that we kept Portis. Did anybody want Portis to walk? Would anybody have been happy if he was playing elsewhere on a 2/14 deal?

You can keep playing your what if games but context matters. Portis is here and Tucker isn't, clearly there's a reason for that and it wasn't the owners trying to save money.

I'm playing what if games? Only because I'm playing with you.

-- If Donte wouldn't have gotten injured, PJ wouldn't have started
-- If PJ would have accepted Portis' contract, he'd still be there (to be fair, you've already forgotten you said this)

I'm not living in a subjunctive reality. I'm living in the reality where we played PJ heavy minutes (and started him, but this is trivial), where he was one of seven regular rotation players when we won a title. This actually happened. For real. Meanwhile you're dealing in counterfactuals.

Nope, I'm living in a world where the second that Portis accepted his deal, Tucker's value was nowhere close to what he wanted (to us). You can't seem to come to terms with giving a 36yr old a multiple year deal who would at best be our 9th man on this current club, wasn't seen as a good idea to the Bucks front office. Just because they could pay him doesn't mean they should.

[WRau1]

I accept but don't agree with the basketball argument for dropping PJ. The salary argument can go **** itself in a burning house.

simply having him on the roster on a multi year gauranteed deal would have forced us to play him. or do you disagree with that?

Why? Dude was completely fine with being load-managed every other game and getting his 19 minutes off the bench just 6 months ago. Hell, everyone including PJ knows that the the regular season isn't what you brought him in for, but the irony is that we definitely could have used him as a ~25ish minutes starter over the past 15-20 games with how injury riddled the roster has been.

If by fine you mean out of shape and injured then I guess.

[Baddy Chuck]

There's a huge difference between being cheap and paying someone what you feel their worth is. I'm not cheap but I'm not going to pay someone $300 to detail my car when I can get it done exactly the same for $180.

But also in this scenario, you couldn't get the job done for $180. You refused to pay $300 and now you have to have the crackheads rub your windshield with newspaper.

Says who? We're 30 games into the season and so far it looks like when healthy, we're the best roster in the league.

And how much contributing to the roster are guys like Hood, Nwora, Semi and eventually Wes Matthews doing? I'd almost be willing to bet we're paying a couple of these guys to bugger off at the next stoplight.

[M-C-G]

i think the guys upset about losing pj are operating under the old herb kohl mentality where we had to overpay the old guy to stay because we didnt have the other value options that present themselves annually for other contenders.

I wanted one more year to really ingrain the 'we dogs' mentality. Long history of loser culture here to overcome. I mean, I think we are there, but certainly wouldn't have minded another year of alpha role player.

That said, if I have to choose between Tucker and Allen, I am glad we got Allen, but I think it could have been a both situation.