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

[Kerb Hohl]

I have not had my tanking/rebuilding hat on for a while and pay a bit less attention to the league at large.

Say they do trade Giannis - somebody mentioned cutting Dame with the stretch provision for other reasons. Odds are you keep him, hope for a quick enough recovery that you can get some assets next year or he picks up his player option and you get them before the 26-27 year...

However, I guess maybe cutting him and stretching out $~25 million/year for 5 years to use the cap space to basically be a contract dumping grounds for a few years to amass picks? Probably stupid but work with me here.

[LUKE23]

2. We have a puncher's chance in any series, provided Prince, Kuzma, Lopez minutes are eliminated.

A puncher's chance with what roster?

[LUKE23]

If they stretch Dame they cannot stretch the PO year I thought? It would just be the 2025-26 salary, and over how many years?

[fansinceforever]

It's not enough to add 5 competent playoff minutes eaters especially when two of them need to be capable of being your 2nd and 3rd best player.

[Kerb Hohl]

If they stretch Dame they cannot stretch the PO year I thought? It would just be the 2025-26 salary, and over how many years?

Yeah, I guess I didn't know the rule there. I figured for the player's sake, the option kicked in and you could stretch it. I didn't do a ton of research there.

I thought it was years left x 2 + 1.

[ShootingtheJ]

2. We have a puncher's chance in any series, provided Prince, Kuzma, Lopez minutes are eliminated.

A puncher's chance with what roster?

The team that took the floor last night plus all the additions we make with our exceptions. $14.1 million MLE, $5.1 million BAE, $7.2 million TPE. Plus, we either waive and stretch Dame, or get a Disabled Player Exception of $14.1 million. We might use part of those Exceptions to retain KPJ and GTJ, but both will be cheap.

[LUKE23]

They aren't getting Trent or KPJ back for anywhere close to what they made this year, come on.

[Bernman]

How bout Doc transitions to golf ambassador for the Bucks & he takes fans on outings. They can schmooze, or lambast him for this season.

[BigO]

If PC opts in, the roster next year is:

GA
Kuzma
PC
Green
AJax
Livingston
Smith

That is two playable players, GA and Green. Explain to me how we build this roster with no picks and no cap space.

We don't need cap space to resign a bunch of our players, we can create cap space, and we have numerous exceptions. We have a tradeable 1st, a tradable 1st round pick swap, and 3 tradable 2nds.

It's not great, but don't continue to act like we have no options, when we factually do.

I like your overly optimistic take, but, except for the tradeable first, none of the others are worth a lot. Maybe I'd feel different if we had a decent GM and decent coach, but the roster is barren.

Because of Giannis, the Bucks are better than the Pacers talentwise and better than the Pistons. But they aren't better than the Cavs or Celtics and several West coast teams.

The future with Giannis and all the exceptions you can muster, is still a playoff team that goes nowhere.

[bucksfansince88]

I say we keep Giannis and try to bring back the group that played last night. And use every resource to build around that group and point Giannis moving forward. That’s the route I take if only We fire/reassign Doc to another role and get a competent coach, that can develop players and help maximize their outputs

[LUKE23]

We don't need cap space to resign a bunch of our players, we can create cap space, and we have numerous exceptions. We have a tradeable 1st, a tradable 1st round pick swap, and 3 tradable 2nds.

It's not great, but don't continue to act like we have no options, when we factually do.

No chance I'm trading any more 1sts.

I think you don't quite understand how many players we need to add to build a roster that has any chance at contending. We literally have two net positive players on the roster as of today (GA and Green). Dame is untradeable. Kuzma is untradeable. Good luck.

[mlloyd10]

Simple Plan - Trade Giannis, get a guy like Jalen Williams and try to get some of our picks back. Develop guys for two years, don't sign any long term contracts, Resign Giannis in 2027

[tydett]

Rebuilding with this team is impossible due to missing unprotected firsts and pick swaps until 2031. There is almost no sensible Giannis trade that fixes that issue because if you get young guys, the idea is that they're bad enough to start with that you supplement them with other high draft picks who fit their timeline, and if you get old guys, they're not good because the team trading for Giannis doesn't want to give those dudes up that would help Giannis win.

The best path forward for the franchise is selling Giannis on being "The Buck" as his legacy and hoping that he's willing to endure short term competitive pain (he can still chase stats and awards) for long-term hope. If he's still a force at 33, then that gives the chance for him to try and pick his running mate in FA when Dame's contract expires, while resetting the asset cupboard for the organization. The Bucks wind up being the Hawks, essentially, for the next few years and probably win the play-in just to get stomped in the playoffs, but I'd much rather have a team centered around Giannis than Trae.

[LUKE23]

So can the Bucks stretch Dame over 5 years and just pay out the player option? Or can they only stretch next year over 3 years? And if so, what happens to the player opton?

[CharityStripe34]

The Bucks led the NBA during the regular season in 3 pt shooting percentage: 38.7%

Lillard - 37.6% - Best since 20-21
Portis - 36.5%
Prince - 43.9%
Trent Jr - 41.6%
Porter Jr - 40.6% (as a Buck)
Green - 42.7%
Lopez - 37.3%
Rollins - 40.8%

The Bucks shot 37.9% from 3 against the Pacers in the playoffs.

Can we finally throw the last shovel of dirt on 'just surround Giannis with shooters'?

And were like 18th in attempts. The coaching was straight up malpractice this season with crappy lineups, way too late adjustments and just a general lack of cohesion. Yeah, Giannis was coasting on defense (probably put 65% effort overall), but the good teams take advantage of the drop. And we trotted out lineups with Prince and Kuzma as our wings for a significant portion, as well as AJax who doesn't even look at the basket. It would have been intriguing to see what Atkinson could've done with this roster (with an obviously healthy Dame). There's a decent chance we don't even trade Khris because I think Kenny would've maximized lineups that made more sense and that could mask deficiencies to a degree.

[WeMajor34]

Rebuilding with this team is impossible due to missing unprotected firsts and pick swaps until 2031. There is almost no sensible Giannis trade that fixes that issue because if you get young guys, the idea is that they're bad enough to start with that you supplement them with other high draft picks who fit their timeline, and if you get old guys, they're not good because the team trading for Giannis doesn't want to give those dudes up that would help Giannis win.

The best path forward for the franchise is selling Giannis on being "The Buck" as his legacy and hoping that he's willing to endure short term competitive pain (he can still chase stats and awards) for long-term hope. If he's still a force at 33, then that gives the chance for him to try and pick his running mate in FA when Dame's contract expires, while resetting the asset cupboard for the organization. The Bucks wind up being the Hawks, essentially, for the next few years and probably win the play-in just to get stomped in the playoffs, but I'd much rather have a team centered around Giannis than Trae.

I'm pretty sure this was brought up earlier but if Giannis stays, he may have to be okay with somewhat of a reset/retool period like Curry did with the Warriors in '20 and '21.

Two different situations (Curry had already won 3 titles) but the sentiment remains the same. We won't be outright tanking like Golden State in '20, but with the Dame injury, you have to take this next year and figure out rotations, retain core pieces, pick up role players, develop young guys, etc. I'm not saying we can't try to compete (we always will with Giannis) but the ceiling for next year's team is certainly in flux. We always have a chance with Giannis though.

I would feel much better about all of this if we fire Doc and get an actual coach in the door. The coaching piece could help or hinder this retool.

[Bernman]

The Bucks led the NBA during the regular season in 3 pt shooting percentage: 38.7%

Lillard - 37.6% - Best since 20-21
Portis - 36.5%
Prince - 43.9%
Trent Jr - 41.6%
Porter Jr - 40.6% (as a Buck)
Green - 42.7%
Lopez - 37.3%
Rollins - 40.8%

The Bucks shot 37.9% from 3 against the Pacers in the playoffs.

Can we finally throw the last shovel of dirt on 'just surround Giannis with shooters'?

Yes & no. Much of the time Giannis was an unwilling passer. So he could change that mindset. And also, he wasn't the 1 surrounded w/ those shooters often. Game 5 was the 1st time in the starting lineup. It did get a lot better results. Should have won at their place.

[fansinceforever]

So the plan is to sell Giannis on the idea that we'll waste his time and he can chase stats for two seasons?

Golden State's picks didnt exactly work out but they had more flexibility than we currently do and at the time, they could sell Moody and Kuminga as potential building block players.

[ShootingtheJ]

We don't need cap space to resign a bunch of our players, we can create cap space, and we have numerous exceptions. We have a tradeable 1st, a tradable 1st round pick swap, and 3 tradable 2nds.

It's not great, but don't continue to act like we have no options, when we factually do.

No chance I'm trading any more 1sts.

I think you don't quite understand how many players we need to add to build a roster that has any chance at contending. We literally have two net positive players on the roster as of today (GA and Green). Dame is untradeable. Kuzma is untradeable. Good luck.

I actually agree, but you're only looking at this from a 1 year perspective. If we just keep our plethora of under 26 back court players, the following year Kuzma is $19 million expiring, Pat is gone, and we'd be eligible to make a 3- 1sts and a pick swap trade on draft night. We'd be a totally legit contender again.

Trade Giannis, and we might not see another contender in Milwaukee in our lifetimes.

[LUKE23]

If the Bucks keep GA, they have $131M of untradeable salary (GA/Dame/Kuzma). If PC opts in, the expiring salary slots they have are:

$9.4M (PC)
$2.3M (Green)
$2.2M (AJax)
$2.2M (Livingston)
$1.9M (Smith)