Bucks News, Trade Ideas, Transactions - No Politics

[coolhandluke121]

He'll have to sustain it a little longer, but I absolutely agree. I played devil's advocate for the contract all along because I felt he had the potential to shoot the 3 much better this year. His form is terrific and it's not unusual for someone his age to make a leap in that department. If he sustains it until the deadline, he's got positive value. If he sustains it all year, he's a huge asset.

It's becoming a bit of a social fad to see who can diss him harder regardless of whether he's actually performing. I'll grant that he's a bad player if he's not hitting his 3's, but that's true of literally hundreds of perimeter players around the league, including many who make more money than Pat and are still considered assets. His RPM is actually very good for his contract, although it won't be if he goes back to hitting 35% of his 3's.

Pat's contract is also the only reason they were able to operate this far over the cap and have this salary slot available for a trade because they had his Early Bird rights. People should be glad the Bucks were willing to raise the payroll that much. I'm keeping him for now and betting on his improved stroke.

The problem is that Pat has had stretches like this before only to take precipitous drops later on. There is no "devils advocate" for the contract because even if Connaughton does outplay it, there's no real excuse for being bent over a barrel by his agent at the time of signing. We gave him far more than he was worth and his current play doesn't change that. If you think he's going to outplay his current value, you use that to your advantage and create a value deal for your situation. You don't pay him more and hope he lives up to it. That's nonsensical. If you're making a deal for the purpose of a salary slot you CERTAINLY don't give him a third year, and you CERTAINLY don't give him a PO.

Oct 17 48.4%
Nov 17 40.0%
Feb 18 40.0%
Mar 19 41.4%
Feb 20 50.0%

So when you say, "he'll have to sustain it for a little longer," I think it's more for the entirety of the season.

Guys like him regularly get paid that much on the open market. It's not a big deal. He was part of literally one of the best regular season benches of the century for two years and he's just entering his prime years. Of course I want every contract to be a bargain, but it's not always an option. I believe someone else would have paid him about this much, although maybe not for 3 years - but that was a requirement of using his early bird rights.

[skones]

Guys like him regularly get paid that much on the open market. It's not a big deal. He was part of literally one of the best regular season benches of the century for two years and he's just entering his prime years. Of course I want every contract to be a bargain, but it's not always an option. I believe someone else would have paid him about this much, although maybe not for 3 years - but that was a requirement of using his early bird rights.

Give me a list of wings who averaged under 5.5 points per game, shot 33.1% from distance, that aren't elite defensively, that got multi-year deals worth 5 million plus. Guys who do that DO NOT regularly get paid that much on the open market. That's false. In fact, WE got THAT guy for 2 years and a total of 3.2 million.

[Ron Swanson]

Dude, it's $4.9 mil, $5.3 mil, and if he keeps playing well these next two seasons he may end up even opting out of that last year. He's 28 years old. He's an absolute bargain right now and he'll still be adequately paid at that salary even when/if his 3PT% regresses. I'm still thinking his ultimate value is a salary chip with Wilson to get a 6th-man quality veteran, but either way it's really not that big of a deal.

[thomchatt3rton]

One always has to remember Jennings was traded for Knight and Middleton, and Monroe was traded for Bledsoe. There's trades out there for our crap if we're clever.

Yep. Its good to remember that as fans, our assessment of players might be essentially accurate, but the trade market does not always reflect that.

People here were absolutely certain that Monroe had negative value and was untradeable. Well. Basically they were right about him as a player, but totally wrong about the trade market.

People were sure we were stuck with Henson and Delly too. We had to attach picks to dump them sure, but we got Hill. And what about Plumlee?


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[skones]

Dude, it's $4.9 mil, $5.3 mil, and if he keeps playing well these next two seasons he may end up even opting out of that last year. He's 28 years old. He's an absolute bargain right now and he'll still be adequately paid at that salary even when/if his 3PT% regresses. I'm still thinking his ultimate value is a salary chip with Wilson to get a 6th-man quality veteran, but either way it's really not that big of a deal.

Yes, it is a big deal. It demonstrates loss on the margins and ineptitude. Small market teams have to win on the margins in order to get championships. When you're pushed to the limits of the salary cap, you don't squander flexibility in this way. He's certainly not "adequately paid" should his 3 ball regress to what we've seen over the last two years.

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[skones]

One always has to remember Jennings was traded for Knight and Middleton, and Monroe was traded for Bledsoe. There's trades out there for our crap if we're clever.

Yep. Its good to remember that as fans, our assessment of players might be essentially accurate, but the trade market does not always reflect that.

People here were absolutely certain that Monroe had negative value and was untradeable. Well. Basically they were right about him as a player, but totally wrong about the trade market.

People were sure we were stuck with Henson and Delly too. We had to attach picks to dump them sure, but we got Hill. And what about Plumlee?


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I think you're missing the part where you said "we had to attach picks to dump them." That's the point. It doesn't help your case.

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[Ron Swanson]

Retaining a quality rotation player on a $4-5 mil deal without using any exceptions or additional cap space (bird rights) is like, literally the definition of winning an "on the margins" type move. Yeah, it's not that big of a deal, at all. The Pat slander is getting really, really weird around here.

[coolhandluke121]

Guys like him regularly get paid that much on the open market. It's not a big deal. He was part of literally one of the best regular season benches of the century for two years and he's just entering his prime years. Of course I want every contract to be a bargain, but it's not always an option. I believe someone else would have paid him about this much, although maybe not for 3 years - but that was a requirement of using his early bird rights.

Give me a list of wings who averaged under 5.5 points per game, shot 33.1% from distance, that aren't elite defensively, that got multi-year deals worth 5 million plus. Guys who do that DO NOT regularly get paid that much on the open market. That's false. In fact, WE got THAT guy for 2 years and a total of 3.2 million.

I'm not going to that trouble, do it yourself. But you shouldn't need to do that to realize that teams pay guys like Pat in hopes they will make a leap all the time. And so far he has made that leap. He's 13th in RPM among all SG's, has a PER of 15.9, and is hitting over 43% of his 3's. He only has 690 3-point attempts in his entire career and it's normal for guys with great form to get much better around this stage of their careers. Some guys attempt 690 in a season. He hit ~40% of his 3's in the bubble and it was the start of a trend. I don't believe for a second that he's a negative asset right now.

You want something to be mad about? Try to trade Jrue today for 25% of what they gave up to get him, to say nothing of all the flexibility they lost in the trade. Pat actually added flexibility because of his Bird Rights and salary slot, to say nothing of the fact that some teams might want him.

[thomchatt3rton]

One always has to remember Jennings was traded for Knight and Middleton, and Monroe was traded for Bledsoe. There's trades out there for our crap if we're clever.

Yep. Its good to remember that as fans, our assessment of players might be essentially accurate, but the trade market does not always reflect that.

People here were absolutely certain that Monroe had negative value and was untradeable. Well. Basically they were right about him as a player, but totally wrong about the trade market.

People were sure we were stuck with Henson and Delly too. We had to attach picks to dump them sure, but we got Hill. And what about Plumlee?


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I think you're missing the part where you said "we had to attach picks to dump them." That's the point. It doesn't help your case.

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Right. Except in the case of Plumlee. Which I grant is probably the exception not the rule.
But I also think those contracts that we had to attach picks to move were worse than the ones ppl were discussing moving now. So, less need to send out picks, or at least first round picks.


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[coolhandluke121]

One always has to remember Jennings was traded for Knight and Middleton, and Monroe was traded for Bledsoe. There's trades out there for our crap if we're clever.

Yep. Its good to remember that as fans, our assessment of players might be essentially accurate, but the trade market does not always reflect that.

People here were absolutely certain that Monroe had negative value and was untradeable. Well. Basically they were right about him as a player, but totally wrong about the trade market.

People were sure we were stuck with Henson and Delly too. We had to attach picks to dump them sure, but we got Hill. And what about Plumlee?


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

I think you're missing the part where you said "we had to attach picks to dump them." That's the point. It doesn't help your case.

They had to add trash picks to get a very good bench player in Hill. That's a normal price regardless of the salary you're dumping in the deal.

[JimmyTheKid]

Guys like him regularly get paid that much on the open market. It's not a big deal. He was part of literally one of the best regular season benches of the century for two years and he's just entering his prime years. Of course I want every contract to be a bargain, but it's not always an option. I believe someone else would have paid him about this much, although maybe not for 3 years - but that was a requirement of using his early bird rights.

Give me a list of wings who averaged under 5.5 points per game, shot 33.1% from distance, that aren't elite defensively, that got multi-year deals worth 5 million plus. Guys who do that DO NOT regularly get paid that much on the open market. That's false. In fact, WE got THAT guy for 2 years and a total of 3.2 million.

I'm not going to that trouble, do it yourself. But you shouldn't need to do that to realize that teams pay guys like Pat in hopes they will make a leap all the time. And so far he has made that leap. He's 13th in RPM among all SG's, has a PER of 15.9, and is hitting over 43% of his 3's. He only has 690 3-point attempts in his entire career and it's normal for guys with great form to get much better around this stage of their careers. Some guys attempt 690 in a season. He hit ~40% of his 3's in the bubble and it was the start of a trend. I don't believe for a second that he's a negative asset right now.

You want something to be mad about? Try to trade Jrue today for 25% of what they gave up to get him, to say nothing of all the flexibility they lost in the trade. Pat actually added flexibility because of his Bird Rights and salary slot, to say nothing of the fact that some teams might want him.

I see some of us are already doing this thing where we pretend losing Giannis was never a legitimate concern, and that the Jrue Holiday trade should be evaluated without any context whatsoever.

[coolhandluke121]

You want something to be mad about? Try to trade Jrue today for 25% of what they gave up to get him, to say nothing of all the flexibility they lost in the trade. Pat actually added flexibility because of his Bird Rights and salary slot, to say nothing of the fact that some teams might want him.

I see some of us are already doing this thing where we pretend losing Giannis was never a legitimate concern, and that the Jrue Holiday trade should be evaluated without any context whatsoever.

I like Jrue as a player but I seriously doubt he's the kind of impact player that makes or breaks the decision for a guy like Giannis. I'm sure he knows there would have been other opportunities to get a player of Jrue's caliber or better, and possibly at a lesser price. He doesn't care about the first 3 months of the regular season anymore. And the Bucks have proven over and over that they're willing to trade whatever picks it takes to give the team a better chance of winning in the playoffs, so it's not like Giannis had any reason to worry about them pulling an Ainge and being too attached to their picks.

[raferfenix]

Pat is Giannis' workout buddy.

That matters considering how tough of a decision it ultimately was for Giannis to sign the supermax.

At a baseline he's a more expensive Thanasis. But it's not like we drafted Tiny Gallon to keep Brandon Jennnings happy here.

The difference is Pat is a solid rotation player with years of experience with the team.

He's certainly not an ideal 8th man when lineups tighten up in the playoffs, however, he's played well enough that I've come around to this as an understandable contingency plan in the face of the Bogdan fiasco.

[Siefer]

I shredded Pat for his poor bubble play, and that carried over into the first couple of weeks of this season. He was lazy on D, and for some reason, Bud put the ball in his hands on offense with predictably bad results. Since he came back from that short injury stint, though, he's been very solid. The energy is back on defense and on the glass, and he's back to cutting, screening, and and finding open 3s (which he's hitting at a good clip) on offense. I'm still suspicious of the contract, but he's been just fine.

[coolhandluke121]

I shredded Pat for his poor bubble play, and that carried over into the first couple of weeks of this season. He was lazy on D, and for some reason, Bud put the ball in his hands on offense with predictably bad results. Since he came back from that short injury stint, though, he's been very solid. The energy is back on defense and on the glass, and he's back to cutting, screening, and and finding open 3s (which he's hitting at a good clip) on offense. I'm still suspicious of the contract, but he's been just fine.

This is a good observation. He was sleepwalking for the first few weeks and was hurting the team despite hitting his 3's. Now that he's playing with energy again and looking like the most athletic guy on the floor more often than not, all while still hitting his 3's, he's pretty valuable. His advanced stats confirm it, and it's actually remarkable that he's managed to be a +2 player despite treating the first few weeks like preseason.

[Prez]

Yeah my hatred has definitely shifted from Pat and Forbes to Forbes and Augustin. Think the key takeaway is that Bryn Forbes sucks.

[tydett]

Patty will forever frustrate me as he flies by guys who then shoot the open shot, but he's not even a top 10 problem for me on this team atm. Augustin turning into an all-time pumpkin @ $7 million, lack of defensive acumen (even if there have been attempts at changing the team's defense), and God's hatred of Wisconsin sports teams are my top 3, for what it's worth.

[Wonka]

Nwora and Merrill both sent to the G League

[Matches Malone]

Nwora and Merrill both sent to the G League

Strange that they went to different teams.

Also, it says we transferred Mamadi to Orlando? Is there a difference in transfer and just sending down?

[coolhandluke121]

Patty will forever frustrate me as he flies by guys who then shoot the open shot,

I'm not counting on this to ever stop but it's only a play or two per game and there is the occasional surprise block that helps make up for it. It's weird to me how people get so mad about bad plays that happen less than twice a game on average, like a Pat flyby, Khris playing soccer with his dribble, or DDV missing a layup. That stuff is a drop in the bucket compared to a guy who hardly ever boxes out, a guy who frequently takes inefficient shots, a guy who's way too slow or too small or both, or a guy who's a defensive liability on nearly every possession even when guarding a mediocre player. If the guy adds up to a positive player overall, I say you just let it go.

he's not even a top 10 problem for me on this team atm.

Amen. I don't think he's going to keep shooting 43% but frankly he's been a top 10 strength so far. There's so many more important things to complain about.