[Eric Nehm] Bucks GM Jon Horst details team’s quiet offseason, Giannis at Olympics and Year 2 of Lillard

The Athletic's Eric Nehm interviews Jon Horst: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5658320/2024/07/26/bucks-jon-horst-qa-giannis-lillard/

It's behind a paywall, but there are are some interesting bits below. One matter of note, for those disposed to gratuitous trade-speculation, is that the Bucks "have zero intentions of trading Brook" and that they have "not engaged in any real conversations about trading Brook" and Horst "hope[s] that Brook retires as a Milwaukee Buck":

One of the rumors that was most connected to your team this summer was potentially trading Brook Lopez. When you talk about a move that could change the way that the team plays and also potentially bring you under the second apron, that feels like the type of trade you could be talking about. Is that something you considered and what are your thoughts on having Lopez on the roster moving forward?

First of all, rumors and chatter are what makes the league so interesting and so fun, so people are always going to speculate and talk about it. And I typically don’t talk about any of this stuff with the media, but I will say, because Brook is so core to who we are, we have zero intentions of trading Brook. Of course he has value around the league. That’s a credit to him. But we’ve not engaged in any real conversations about trading Brook. There are teams that have a lot of value and interest in him. It’s my job to take calls, receive calls, have conversations, but Brook has been and will continue to be core to who we are.

I hope that Brook retires as a Milwaukee Buck. That’s been the goal since we originally got him. His impact on our team defensively and rebounding is elite. It only gets better. It’s not declining. I mean, he’s an anomaly in how he just continues to get better and better and better. For Doc, who got to spend time with Brook personally last year, Brook holds an incredible value for Doc for what he does defensively and rebounding and offensively, the spacing he gives us, and especially Giannis, is unique.

People are going to always speculate and have conversations and they’ll think they know what they’re talking about, but at the end of the day, we have zero interest or intention of trading Brook Lopez. He’s a core part of our team. We’ve got a starting group now that we think is as good as anybody and we look forward to seeing how this team plays throughout the year.

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I found it interesting that Horst included Pat among the players he was building a team around ("build a team that fits"):

While we try to tackle your offseason moves in chronological order, it makes a little more sense here to start at the end. Before the offseason got underway, there was discussion of Gary Trent Jr. receiving far more than the minimum this summer. How much did signing him mean to your offseason and what do you feel like he can bring to this team?

For us, having some of the limitations with the CBA and the second apron — and we’ve always done this — but we’ve just worked really, really hard from the day that the offseason started until now as we continue to work to be super intentional and specific about who we add to this team, how we add to this team, and trying to build a team that best fits Dame, Giannis, Khris (Middleton), Brook, Bobby (Portis), Pat (Connaughton) and the group and Doc. So I feel very fortunate that we had an opportunity to have an offseason understanding what our core group of players was going to be, what our coaching staff was going to be, and then trying to build best fits. And I think Gary, in particular, epitomizes some of those targets.

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There's no discussion of summer league performances, and Horst apparently still views Marion as among the young players that "are ready to contribute now"; there aren't clear signs of Horst viewing Chris Livingston as having surpassed him:

I think there’s a lot of upside to this roster, based on the acquisitions that we’ve made here in free agency, but I’ve always said that there’s a lot of upside to the roster, just based on familiarity with the coaching staff and roster. And don’t forget MarJon (Beauchamp), Andre Jackson Jr., AJ Green and Chris Livingston coming back and their improvements. I think those guys are going to have an impact on our team…

…I love where we’re at. I love where we’re positioned going into the season. I love the balance of age and talent on our roster. We talked about it at the draft. We have six returning vets, three possible vet free agents, three returning young vets in MarJon, AJ and Andre that I think are ready to contribute now and three 19- or 20-year-olds in AJ Johnson, Chris Livingston and Tyler Smith. Now we’ve filled that unknown in three vets with a 25-year-old Gary Trent, a 32-year-old Delon Wright and a 30-year-old Taurean Prince.

…And I couldn’t be more excited about Delon and Taurean and Gary and the growth that MarJon and AJ, Andre and Chris are going to have in really adding to our defensive tool chest. I think these guys really are going to add to the things that we can do defensively as a group.