Bucks News, Trade Ideas, Transactions

[BroncoBuck]

I’m fairly convinced we’re going to get a January Sunday afternoon news dump that Khris needs another surgery and he will not play this season.

Bucks trade:

Khris Middleton 2yrs 65mil (31+34 P.O.) remaining

Hawks trade:

Bogdan 3yrs 49 mil (17+16+16 T.O) remaining
Okongwu 4yrs 62 mill (14+15+16+17) remaining

Okongwu isn’t a starter and he’s getting paid like one on a long deal, but that’s the incentive for Atlanta to get off that contract. Just a backup big getting paid far too much. His shot hasn’t really developed, and he doesn’t defend other centers well, but I think he’s a better answer for defending the small ball teams than we have.

Atlanta is primed to be the blow it up team. Jalen, Daniels and Risacher are their new foundation.

[Matches Malone]

Read on Twitter

[StickeeFingaz]

And there it is.

Wonder who leaked it, maybe some public pressure to get him to suit up sooner rather than later?

[ReasonablySober]

So it's what we've figured for a while now.

[blazza18]

We basically knew this already from the Nehm piece a week or so ago. If he can't trust his body now he's never going to trust it and we should've moved on already.

[WeMajor34]

And there it is.

Wonder who leaked it, maybe some public pressure to get him to suit up sooner rather than later?

It’s a savvy way to put the responsibility back onto Khris. I’m sure the organization isn’t happy about this slow ramp-up. They probably had a set period of time where they were going to keep it in house. Now the ball is in Khris’ court.

[Baddy Chuck]

Thanks Kawhi.

[MVP2110]

Not great that the organization clearly felt they needed to leak this

[German Athens]

What about Podz as a target?

Kerr has raved about Portis in the past, and they have a glut of guards.

[raferfenix]

Bucks trade:

Khris Middleton 2yrs 65mil (31+34 P.O.) remaining

Hawks trade:

Bogdan 3yrs 49 mil (17+16+16 T.O) remaining
Okongwu 4yrs 62 mill (14+15+16+17) remaining

Okongwu isn’t a starter and he’s getting paid like one on a long deal, but that’s the incentive for Atlanta to get off that contract. Just a backup big getting paid far too much. His shot hasn’t really developed, and he doesn’t defend other centers well, but I think he’s a better answer for defending the small ball teams than we have.

I’m also interested in Okongwu as a switchy athletic big.

His age lines up with an Atlanta rebuild but they like Nance as a short term cagey vet and haven’t gotten an acceptable deal for Capela after years being on the market.

Not sure I see a Middleton deal but have been playing with scenarios to bring him in.

[ReasonablySober]

This was from last month on the 31st.

Nehm just did an amazing interview with Khris.

Won’t post the whole thing, but for those who can read it, Nehm nicely asks Khris what the hell is going wrong with him about 10 different ways. Khris just nonchalantly keeps saying he will eventually get his body back in shape.

How does this process go? How much of it is telling the training staff how you feel and working with them?

I think that doesn’t just go for me, that’s with any athlete going through any type of injury. Even you guys, you go to the doctor. It’s the same thing. We know our bodies the best. I mean, we have the timeframes, what things should look like, how things are supposed to go and at the same time you have to know how your body is and know where your body is at that stage through those processes. That’s how it’s always been. Like I said I’ve been trending in the right direction every day really, just haven’t been able to be good enough to go out there and play yet.

I take the side of the players when it comes to injuries and their bodies 99 times out of 100. Have always given guys the benefit of the doubt.

But I was listening to some pod with a former player in the last week or so, and I know this isn't helpful, but his thinking was in the past guys just accepted that they were never going to be 100%. They went out and played hurt to some degree every night and no one was ever 100%. It was just the normal thing to do.

That Middleton interview sure sounds like someone chasing the mythical 100%.

Yup.

[humanrefutation]

And there it is.

Wonder who leaked it

[Frank Nova]

Change his name to Roberta Portis and trade him to Indiana…. Fever, for Caitlin Clark.

[GoldenAntlers]

And there it is.

Wonder who leaked it

[mattg]

This was from last month on the 31st.

Nehm just did an amazing interview with Khris.

Won’t post the whole thing, but for those who can read it, Nehm nicely asks Khris what the hell is going wrong with him about 10 different ways. Khris just nonchalantly keeps saying he will eventually get his body back in shape.

I take the side of the players when it comes to injuries and their bodies 99 times out of 100. Have always given guys the benefit of the doubt.

But I was listening to some pod with a former player in the last week or so, and I know this isn't helpful, but his thinking was in the past guys just accepted that they were never going to be 100%. They went out and played hurt to some degree every night and no one was ever 100%. It was just the normal thing to do.

That Middleton interview sure sounds like someone chasing the mythical 100%.

Yup.

100% agreed.

I was having a discussion with someone on here this summer about eventually when guys have repeated surgeries, even if they are minor clean up procedures, year after year, eventually their body just doesn't recover the same, their confidence in their body is forever altered, and obviously there is some level of diminished athletic ability. With Khris there is obviously some loss of speed/quickness/explosion after his injuries, he probably has some issues going hard because he doesn't trust his body to not give out on him, and he is just getting older on top of that where everything just goes downhill anyway. He probably perpetually is feeling like how he did when he was newly recovering from hamstring surgery 8 years ago, and hasn't yet realized that feeling like that is his "new normal" or baseline ability and not him being a shell of himself that will get better with time and rest.

[MissKhriddleton]

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At what point is he breaching his contract?

[midranger]

If you were getting paid tens of millions of dollars to play basketball, how bad would you have to hurt to not play basketball?

[midranger]

Read on Twitter

At what point is he breaching his contract?

In the nba? Never.

Larry Sanders literally didn’t want to play because he wanted to smoke weed constantly. We paid his contract.

[ReasonablySober]

If you were getting paid tens of millions of dollars to play basketball, how bad would you have to hurt to not play basketball?

I mean, he's getting paid tens of millions of dollars not to play basketball.

The question now is how much he's hurting vs how bad the public pressure is and the responsibility he's feeling to be there for his teammates.

[Bernman]

We basically knew this already from the Nehm piece a week or so ago. If he can't trust his body now he's never going to trust it and we should've moved on already.

I don't get the logic he couldn't trust it more further away from the surgeries, pain, & w/ positive experience.

You can't move him while he's injured. At the very least he'd need to reestablish. Then he's essential to Dame-Giannis functioning. But we do like selling low & making bad trades. So maybe you'll get your wish.