The Bucks player personnel issues under LED

[Perishable517]

So, today the sky is falling?

Lucky you all are not old, you would have had a heart attack by now with the ups and downs you go through.

[BucksFanSD]

Other than MCW over the Lakers pick, I believe the board was generally ok or good with all of these transactions at the time they happened. Other than Thon (jury is still out), none of the moves caused the outside world to say, "what the heck is that team doing?".

a. The board opinion isn't of much pertinence. I don't think many here are for collectively making the decisions for the Bucks, rather empowering the best personnel guy available at the time to do the job.

b. The board was not good or ok with many or even most of the major moves at the time. Vasquez for a 1st + 2nd made the Bucks' f.o. the league's laughingstock for that day. There was a similar response to giving Plumlee 50 million dollars. I saw plenty of hand-wringing over the Vaughn, Thon, Teletovic, Henson, Wilson, JOB, Dudley, Zaza, and selling of 2nd moves at the time.

c. When judging the job of the f.o., aside from the unforeseen, like injury, all that matters is the result. Not the (mis)perception at the time. Good f.o.'s beat their competition in the area, seeing what they didn't. Having a good f.o. is all that much more important in a small, cold market.

The Plumlee deal you are correct and same for the selling of the 2nd round picks (that normally doesn't backfire). Telly seemed like a reasonable deal, Henson was signed when he was consistent and shot blockers were very valuable. Monroe was a huge PR signing, draft picks will always be argued, Delly was a "nice fit" piece. I just think a lot of what happened seemed decent at the time to the general NBA world.

[Tfence92]

Putting the players drafted with the picks we traded makes no sense, only shows bias.

[paulpressey25]

Putting the players drafted with the picks we traded makes no sense, only shows bias.

It also illustrates that there was extremely good value still available at those picks for enlightened front offices such as Golden State and Toronto.

[humanrefutation]

I put even more emphasis on moves that were terrible when they happened. The Plumlee contract was one of the worst deals ever handed out in this league, IMO. The Vasquez trade was terrible when it happened. Selling picks is never a good idea. Dumping Dudley never made a whole lotta sense.

I was strongly opposed to the Delly deal from Day 1, but I know some people here sang his praises. I was wrong on Telly, as was most NBA journos out there who actively praised the Bucks for that move. I don't think the Monroe signing was bad.

[tski1972]

Bottom line LED was gifted Giannis and has crapped the floor since. Hired great business people and crappy basketball people.

yep.

[Tfence92]

Putting the players drafted with the picks we traded makes no sense, only shows bias.

It also illustrates that there was extremely good value still available at those picks for enlightened front offices such as Golden State and Toronto.

Then it's a negative for 20-25 other teams as well, having taken other players instead...

[coolhandluke121]

Is this regime worse than Kohl's? It's already looking that way. So frustrating. The Bucks are going to end up as the Browns of the NBA.

Honestly this reminds me a lot of the 90's Bucks, when Dunleavy was the coach and gm (read: Kidd and his influence) and Kohl was just the guy asking him to make the Bucks better without any ability whatsoever to actually evaluate his performance in that regard. The rate of colossal mistakes and overrating players that even the most casual of fans should know are terrible makes Kohl look like a solid skeptic with high standards. Giannis covers for them in so many ways it's a disgrace. If Alex Lasry is any indication, these guys are as ignorant as that uncle you have who really only likes the Packers and feigns interest in the Bucks every time they have a 3-game win streak and some ESPN highlights.

[Chuck Diesel]

Promising Damien Inglis at 31 was really bad, and not having the intel that he was a damaged goods was even worse. Thats a super coveted pick that could’ve been used in so many smarter ways.

[paulpressey25]

Promising Damien Inglis at 31 was really bad, and not having the intel that he was a damaged goods was even worse. Thats a super coveted pick that could’ve been used in so many smarter ways.

True, we could have made a crisp $3 million by selling it to the Warriors so they could have selected Jokic.

[Prez]

The Steve Novak signing was a pretty inconsequential move that's still annoying and highlights how little this team has cared about the little things in team building.

[Magic Giannison]

The Steve Novak signing was a pretty inconsequential move that's still annoying and highlights how little this team has cared about the little things in team building.

Lol, i totally forgot about Steve Novak the legend.

What about Chris Copeland,doe she deserve a mention ?

[TJseven]

There's a lot of yuck to go around that takes my philosophy on cap management and throws it down a flight of stairs. I HATE FA. I would wait until all the money is blown and scoop up the talent left... rinse repeat. They are filler. You dont pay filler. You dont commit to filler because if anything goes wrong you are stuck on garbage. You can take the names out of the equation. The theory is flawed and that's more damning than the results.

Other things I can't get past are more philosophy driven. You do not trade assets for expirings. Never. You do not sell picks... infact you buy them or trade up a 2nd and $$$ for a late 1st. Control matters more than your $$$ today. Think brogdon as a late 1st. Better!

Its also abundantly clear that this group has no sense of what is next. Monroe was on the verge of being a dinosaur in the game and that was our target. No range no rim protection. We doubled down on that with plums. The scheme our coaches are allowed to run are asinine. There is no sense that this is questioned. Good business men should know being ahead of the curve is how you win.

I can't fault thon or dj as they look like that next type player and maybe they missed. But there are too many things going on that are backwards. I won't talk results. They come later. But the ideas leading into decisions to sell picks trade for an expiring and sign 2 dudes to 30 mil combined who aren't a part of the direction this game is going is not excusable.

They talk analytics... and while analytics are still far from perfect I cant imagine many of these decisions fit those numbers.

And how does snell command 11 when a number of similar players came in at 7-8 per? I wanted snell at 8-3. Instead like always we bent over and now im meh about it. Agents shouldn't smile when you call. They don't work for you.

[trwi7]

The thing is, one Tony Snell isn't really a problem. You'd prefer not to pay a player like him $11 million and either let him find an offer and evaluate or let him come back and negotiate on your terms when the offer he's looking for isn't out there but having one isn't really a problem. The problem is when you have four of them like we do (Henson, Delly, Telly) and then another that we signed and were lucky to be able to get rid of (Plumlee). Imagine if we hadn't found a taker for Plumlee. Over half of the cap would be going to those 5 players and almost half still is with the 4 still on our payroll plus Hawes.

And if that isn't bad enough, we hired our "cap guru" because Edens didn't want to hire Zanik so he used his power to overrule Lasry and Dinan and that stalemate ended up with the "compromise" of Horst.

We're just so awful in every conceivable way. It's exactly like Kohl, except this time names aren't obscure like Ron Walter or John Steinmiller.

[TJseven]

The thing is, one Tony Snell isn't really a problem. You'd prefer not to pay a player like him $11 million and either let him find an offer and evaluate or let him come back and negotiate on your terms when the offer he's looking for isn't out there but having one isn't really a problem. The problem is when you have four of them like we do (Henson, Delly, Telly) and then another that we signed and were lucky to be able to get rid of (Plumlee). Imagine if we hadn't found a taker for Plumlee. Over half of the cap would be going to those 5 players and almost half still is with the 4 still on our payroll plus Hawes.

And if that isn't bad enough, we hired our "cap guru" because Edens didn't want to hire Zanik so he used his power to overrule Lasry and Dinan and that stalemate ended up with the "compromise" of Horst.

We're just so awful in every conceivable way. It's exactly like Kohl, except this time names aren't obscure like Ron Walter or John Steinmiller.

Completely agree... but 5th times a charm isn't a saying. Its continuing a disturbing pattern. You'd think they'd have seen this when junk heap beas was no worse than 10/3 mirza... but no.

That's the maddening part. You could poverty level this team and pocket extra money or use open space to eat short term garbage and gather picks or buy picks. No one would complain if the cupboards were stoked with assets and the bench was full of cheap short term scraps. The casual fans wouldn't even know once the product hit the floor. They loved snell delfino beas bayless. Afflolo would have been a name damn it! Jameer! New scrubs to love every year. New scrubs to trade for junk every year with picks coming back.

We burn assets every single year and 3 years ago is where we needed to start gathering. Now we can't. You can't burn it down around giannis the top 5 player. Sanders implosion crushed this team and its flailing to recover has killed us.

If we had only followed our own monta... own the future.

[Pachinko_]

I wonder what real incentive an owner has to make a winning team.

NBA teams are designed to go through cycles because of parity, cap and draft rules. Trying to maintain success long term is like trying to fight the whole universe, it's pretty much impossible. And yet you are guaranteed to make a tonne of money when you sell, and if you make some losses temporarily, those loses will be offset by the revenue sharing agreement, no big deal. I would argue that the popularity of the League in China and the real estate deals with the City are way way more important for the owners than wins are.

I actually also wonder what real incentives NBA GM's, coaches and even players have to make a winning team, but that is a much longer post.

[ackypoo]

I wonder what real incentive an owner has to make a winning team.

NBA teams are designed to go through cycles because of parity, cap and draft rules. Trying to maintain success long term is like trying to fight the whole universe, it's pretty much impossible. And yet you are guaranteed to make a tonne of money when you sell, and if you make some losses temporarily, those loses will be offset by the revenue sharing agreement, no big deal. I would argue that the popularity of the League in China and the real estate deals with the City are way way more important for the owners than wins are.

I actually also wonder what real incentives NBA GM's, coaches and even players have to make a winning team, but that is a much longer post.

well, theres an incentive to win because the more you win the more money you make. but if youre too dumb to figure out how to win, second prize is still making oodles of money. especially when you have giannis.

itll be a different story when he leaves, the fans leave, and theyre losing 50 games a year in an empty arena.

[JHSFIVE]

how soon will LED sell after the arena is complete?

[Ron Swanson]

how soon will LED sell after the arena is complete?

Decades?

[sidney lanier]

I wonder what real incentive an owner has to make a winning team.

NBA teams are designed to go through cycles because of parity, cap and draft rules. Trying to maintain success long term is like trying to fight the whole universe, it's pretty much impossible. And yet you are guaranteed to make a tonne of money when you sell, and if you make some losses temporarily, those loses will be offset by the revenue sharing agreement, no big deal. I would argue that the popularity of the League in China and the real estate deals with the City are way way more important for the owners than wins are.

I actually also wonder what real incentives NBA GM's, coaches and even players have to make a winning team, but that is a much longer post.

I imagine some owners see only an investment, and for those owners W-L is not as important as EBITDA. However, I suspect LED are more like Ballmer and Cuban -- rich-guy owner-fans who care about winning an October regular season game as much as us less-well-heeled fans do.



The normal fan response seems to me to be incentive enough. The bigger danger, I think, is owners who love too much and end up failing to resist the temptation to meddle. I'm in the minority on this board in thinking that doesn't really happen too much and isn't happening with this crew.