Jake Fischer is pretty definitive that's what we're offering around the league at the moment:
The Bucks right now are continuing to, I’ve been told from various teams, call around the league and look for perimeter defensive adjustments and reinforcements right now. That’s kind of been the theme in Milwaukee dating back to last trade deadline.
So I’m not surprised to hear that from various sources and various teams around the league the Bucks. The Bucks were canvassing last year as we discussed about the potential of a Bobby Portis/Pat Connaughton package and what that salary could have gotten. We reported they were looking at Bruce Brown in Toronto and Dejounte Murray back in Atlanta before he was traded. Now the Bucks can’t aggregate any salary...
However I do know that this 2031 first round pick the Bucks do have access to is the piece that Milwaukee is dangling out there and trying to see what they could potentially get.
I'm seeing the comments asking about Brook Lopez. He is a name we have talked about in this space of course as well. He is someone who Milwaukee was starting to gauge the interest on his trade value this past summer. I don’t think you necessarily can trade him right now being that defensive shortcomings are arguably, and seems to be objectively, the clear shortcoming with this Bucks team. And if you are so sure about shoring up your perimeter defense you probably don’t want to be moving on from your defensive player of the year candidate of years past who is an absolute wall in the interior.
I have not heard Brook Lopez’s name come up this season, that is more something that was being bandied about this past summer, I think when the Bucks were in more of an exploratory phase.
This 2031 first round pick the Bucks have to play with here -- they are valuing this quite highly. Even if they are able to retain Giannis long term he will be 37 come 2031.
Which, look, in today’s NBA when Steph Curry is doing what he’s doing at 37 years old and LeBron James is playing at his level at 40, what can Giannis Antetokoumpo this freak athlete, whose freak is in his nickname of course, what can he be doing at 37? Who is to say.
But there is some value in that 2031 pick the Bucks are correctly assessing. You get access to that pick who is to say what type of pick that can be?
Could this be a Nets pick that the Celtics got in return for KG and Paul Pierce when those guys aged out and those picks ended up becoming Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown and so on and so forth. The Utah Jazz wanted to prioritize future picks down the line from all of my reporting when they sent out Donovan Mitchell. The Knicks had all these picks in 2024 and 2025, Cleveland was the team that met Utah’s asking price when they sent picks later into this decade. At the time there was some hope on Utah’s side Donovan wouldn't be with Cleveland past the first two years of his contract, before he signed this extension to say with the Cavs this season, and of course now it’s all honkey dory with the Cavs off to one of the greatest starts in NBA history.
But there is definite precedent to say all this where a team would definitely value a future pick far off down the road as opposed to something that could help you right now. So I understand why Milwaukee is looking at that.
