Bucks News, Transactions and Trade Ideas - 2025 Off-season

[DanoMac]

Look at Dirk. Powerhouse Dallas team in 06-07 that lost in the Finals. Then got bounced out of the 1st round 3 out of the next 4 years before winning it all in 2010-11 at 33 years old.

I'm not saying the situations are identical, but you keep the best player in the world and take advantage of the dumb teams.

Sounds good, except we're one of the dumb teams that others take advantage of.

And when you're being taken advantage of by the Wizards, you're at the bottom.

Something tells me the Kuzma trade was more of a Doc thing. I like Horst. If he was able to hire the coach he wanted to we might not be having this discussion today.

I'm not advocating for Bud by any means, but if he was still here, Kuzma would have never been a Buck

[BroncoBuck]

So, we can apply for the Disabled Player Exception which in Dame's case would be worth the full non-taxpayer MLE of $14,105,000. It could be used to sign one player to a one year deal or trade for a player in the last year of their deal that makes equal to or less than that amount, I believe. Not sure who you target with that, but it's a tool in our very sparse toolbox pending league approval.

We can only get it if Dame is ruled out for the entire season though, which isn’t necessarily the case with his Achilles injury.

[Be Here Now]

Look at Dirk. Powerhouse Dallas team in 06-07 that lost in the Finals. Then got bounced out of the 1st round 3 out of the next 4 years before winning it all in 2010-11 at 33 years old.

I'm not saying the situations are identical, but you keep the best player in the world and take advantage of the dumb teams.

Unfortunately it seems like the current CBA killed the Cuban strategy. And as Big O said, we are for sure one of the dumb teams at this point.

I'm just not seeing any way to put a contender around Giannis in the next 5 years. We have no assets or draft picks. It's almost impossible to be in a worse position. If Sam Presti was our GM trading Giannis is the easy call. But we also wouldn't be in this position if he was our gm.

Jon Horst put us in one of the worst binds I can remember any NBA team being in. The easy part was done for him. Young top 5 player. Young top 30-40 guy in Middleton. Crapload of draft picks. ****.

[RiotPunch]

So, we can apply for the Disabled Player Exception which in Dame's case would be worth the full non-taxpayer MLE of $14,105,000. It could be used to sign one player to a one year deal or trade for a player in the last year of their deal that makes equal to or less than that amount, I believe. Not sure who you target with that, but it's a tool in our very sparse toolbox pending league approval.

We can only get it if Dame is ruled out for the entire season though, which isn’t necessarily the case with his Achilles injury.

Yeah, need to call in a favor to an NBA-designated physician, I guess...

[emunney]

We need to apply for that DPE as soon as possible.

[emunney]

So, we can apply for the Disabled Player Exception which in Dame's case would be worth the full non-taxpayer MLE of $14,105,000. It could be used to sign one player to a one year deal or trade for a player in the last year of their deal that makes equal to or less than that amount, I believe. Not sure who you target with that, but it's a tool in our very sparse toolbox pending league approval.

We can only get it if Dame is ruled out for the entire season though, which isn’t necessarily the case with his Achilles injury.

Yeah, need to call in a favor to an NBA-designated physician, I guess...

Not sure you could find many physicians who would say it's not a full year injury.

[DanoMac]

We can only get it if Dame is ruled out for the entire season though, which isn’t necessarily the case with his Achilles injury.

Yeah, need to call in a favor to an NBA-designated physician, I guess...

Not sure you could find many physicians who would say it's not a full year injury.

Aaron Rodgers thinks he'll be back for game 5

[ShootingtheJ]

I think some need to go back and look at Jrue's playoff numbers during his tenure here. 40/30/70 during our run. He was bad on offense during the playoffs all 3 years. Chris Paul and Devin Booker had no problem scoring on him. Butler famously destroyed him. We are talking about that trade much differently if the stars didn't align in 2021 (PJ, Mids turning into Jordan lite, Nets injuries, Hawks ECF, and Monty (poor mans Doc) in finals.

I think you can easily make the case that Jrue was the worst 3rd option of any championship winner of the past 20 years. He's in the perfect spot as the Celtics 6th or 7th best player.

I agree with a lot of what you said, but Booker and Paul lit up PJ, and Jrue matched back and forth to cool one down, then the other. Jrue guarded Jimmy moronically, and got destroyed.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

If they took back Kuzma just to get under the 2nd apron, I can only fear what kind of player is coming back in a Dame trade.

Ben Simmons

Realistically, Jeremi Grant or Paul George. We're better off waiving and stretching Lillard.

https://www.si.com/nba/suns/news/can-phoenix-suns-bradley-beal-agree-buyout#:~:text=%22Phoenix%20cannot%20waive%20Beal%20and,%2422%20million%20hit%20this%20season.
Is it possible? Seems like we would be in the same situation?

[ShootingtheJ]

We need to apply for that DPE as soon as possible.

It's not that useful. You can only sign someone to a 1 year deal, and you'd run into apron issues. Might be useful in a trade, but we already have a decent sized TPE.

Better off waiving and stretching. Still haven't seen whether we can extend him before the waive and stretch, to spread the yearly hit out farther.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

We can only get it if Dame is ruled out for the entire season though, which isn’t necessarily the case with his Achilles injury.

Yeah, need to call in a favor to an NBA-designated physician, I guess...

Not sure you could find many physicians who would say it's not a full year injury.

Arent most Achilles 8-10 months? I dont think the standard is full recovery with ramp up but just when he is allowed to physically play again.

[Be Here Now]

I think some need to go back and look at Jrue's playoff numbers during his tenure here. 40/30/70 during our run. He was bad on offense during the playoffs all 3 years. Chris Paul and Devin Booker had no problem scoring on him. Butler famously destroyed him. We are talking about that trade much differently if the stars didn't align in 2021 (PJ, Mids turning into Jordan lite, Nets injuries, Hawks ECF, and Monty (poor mans Doc) in finals.

I think you can easily make the case that Jrue was the worst 3rd option of any championship winner of the past 20 years. He's in the perfect spot as the Celtics 6th or 7th best player.

I agree with a lot of what you said, but Booker and Paul lit up PJ, and Jrue matched back and forth to cool one down, then the other. Jrue guarded Jimmy moronically, and got destroyed.

Interesting. I haven't rewatched any of the games. Just curious who was Jrue on during the finals? He is certainly a high effort/intensity defender and comes up with a strip steal or two every game. But it just seems like the guy he was covering would always wind up with their average or better by the end of the night.

Was never impressed with Jrue when he was here. Horst traded him at the right time.

[ShootingtheJ]

Ben Simmons

Realistically, Jeremi Grant or Paul George. We're better off waiving and stretching Lillard.

https://www.si.com/nba/suns/news/can-phoenix-suns-bradley-beal-agree-buyout#:~:text=%22Phoenix%20cannot%20waive%20Beal%20and,%2422%20million%20hit%20this%20season.
Is it possible? Seems like we would be in the same situation?

With the increase in the cap we should slide just under those parameters. 15% of next year's cap is just over $23 million.

[German Athens]

I really don’t think OKC has this treasure trove of future 1sts.

They have 10, but won’t be able to trade all of them due to the stepien rule.

Here’s what fanspo has:
2025:
Mia
Lac
Philly (protected top 6)
2026:
Uta (protected top 8)
Okc
2027:
Den (protected top 5)
Lac swap
2028:
Dal swap
2029:
Okc
Den (protected top 5)
2030:
Okc
2031:
Okc

I don’t actually see any premium assets here, especially considering so many of those other team’s firsts have protections on them.

[emunney]

Yeah, need to call in a favor to an NBA-designated physician, I guess...

Not sure you could find many physicians who would say it's not a full year injury.

Arent most Achilles 8-10 months? I dont think the standard is full recovery with ramp up but just when he is allowed to physically play again.

Durant missed a full year, Klay missed a full year, Cousins and Wall were injured in the winter and missed the rest of that season AND the entire next one. Some guys come back quicker -- Kobe was in the same calendar year, and Wes Matthews tore his in March and laced them up for the Mavs on opening night. Definitely not saying it can't/won't happen. But I don't think it's going to take some special dispensation to grant us a DPE for an Achilles' tear.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

Thinking outside the box, if Giannis wants to stay is there a distressed asset that could be salvageable. Not saying it would make us a contender, but a team that could do damage if we get lucky. I'm think Zion, Embiid, *gulp* Beal/George. where we trade Kuz and Pat to give the other team some relief? Like if Sixers get Flagg, do they just go all in on him and Maxey and be happy to get rid of Embiid for pennies on the dollar?

[raferfenix]

$58M for 36 year old Dame post-achilles tear in 2026-27.

If it wasn't such an ungodly amount of money he might just retire.

[ShootingtheJ]

He's not a sure thing, but I think Quentin Grimes is the player to bring in this offseason. Sure, late season scoring can be pretty fake, but he did score efficiently. Even if he's not a 21 ppg scorer, his game is pretty complete.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

I really don’t think OKC has this treasure trove of future 1sts.

They have 10, but won’t be able to trade all of them due to the stepien rule.

Here’s what fanspo has:
2025:
Mia
Lac
Philly (protected top 6)
2026:
Uta (protected top 8)
Okc
2027:
Den (protected top 5)
Lac swap
2028:
Dal swap
2029:
Okc
Den (protected top 5)
2030:
Okc
2031:
Okc

I don’t actually see any premium assets here, especially considering so many of those other team’s firsts have protections on them.

I always thought the OKC stash was overrated. Like it is nice to have that many swings at finding a cheap asset round out the roster but nothing I would trade an all-nba guy for.

[raferfenix]

*gulp* Beal

Haven't we suffered enough?