Matt Moore Talks Giannis’ Future in Milwaukee, the Bucks’ offseason Challenges and the CBA Impact

Matt Moore Talks Giannis’ Future in Milwaukee, the Bucks’ offseason Challenges and the CBA Impact

replacing Brook Lopez for the Bucks harder than it seems i think so we’ll get into that conversation and more surrounding the future of Giannis next on Locked on Bucks you are Locked on Bucks your daily Milwaukee Bucks podcast part of the Locked on Podcast Network your team every day welcome in to Locked On Bucks i’m Justin Garcia you can find me on the Bucks Radio Network today’s episode is brought to you by our friends over at Game Time now is the time download the Game Time app create an account and use the code lockdown NBA for $20 off your first purchase joined today by a senior NBA analyst for the Action Sports Network and one of the hosts of the Lockdown Nuggets podcast Matt Moore and Matt I think we referenced it earlier in the week but uh you got picked up a couple days ago talking about the summer ahead of the Bucks and some of the uh players on their roster notably Brook Lopez who has um been very polarizing among Bucks fans to put it mildly but um the the intel that you have Brook Lopez not likely to be back with the Bucks next off season uh I said going into the offseason I think that’s where most Bucks fans and and all of us were as well that it it probably just doesn’t fit anymore but um when you look at all the guys that the Bucks have this summer to make decisions on if we take Bobby Portoris and his player option out of it is it a safe assumption to say Brook Lopez is going to command the most interest in money yeah I would say that i mean Brooks a name that you can bring in and feel like you’ve got a major you landed somebody who’s going to make a major impact right um I want to say that I’ve heard a lot of like I’m I’m always a little cautious about and nervous and well just vomit just very nauseated about reporting on who the buck because they’ve put out a lot of noise about trading guys before like Mid was on the block for like 18 months prior and I’d heard that like Brooke was probably not going to return the last time that he assigned the deal that they were going to work out a deal for him to go elsewhere and then they just kept him you know and that they may get to the end of it part of this I think is at this point in the in the offseason teams are planning on how they want to build the team but then you get to July or you get to that realistically get to that last week in June um when they’re not supposed to be talking to each other and then you realize like oh we weren’t able to get this we weren’t able to do this we weren’t able to do this hey we really kind of got to bring him back based off of this so when I say probably unlikely to return like that’s kind of been the assumption that I think most people have made that you know there’s been a lot of talk of various suitors the Lakers I am always a little suspicious of just because I think Brooke was so unhappy with his first stint there i just don’t think it fits what he wants for his daily life um regardless of how awesome it is to go to Avengers world and at in Disney but like in general I I do think yeah I think it’s probably likely especially given I’m trying to piece together some of the bigger things I’ve heard which is you know same thing everybody else heard which is hey y probably stay in put and then the other thing is they probably want to shave some money off the luxury tax and or escape it entirely and it’s just like very hard to see a financial plan where they’re able to do that and keep Brooke given what he’s likely to demand on the market yeah and I mean it it I I think everybody kind of envisioned life after Brook Lopez last year in the playoffs and and most Bucks fans were pushing for it when you saw the way they played against the Pacers and and the way that they found this is the group that works this this fit here but my big hesitation is uh I’ve talked about on the show before you see a lot of criticism for Brook Lopez and I’m not going to say Brook Lopez is the athlete he once was or as nimble and a guy that can get up and down the floor but he still brings a lot of value as as we just mentioned with the interest he he’s theoretically going to have on the open market so how do you replace that because as good as Giannis at the five is in the playoffs we know that’s not how Giannis wants to play throughout the season so you still need somebody else to eat up those innings if you will during the regular season it’s not a really great market for bigs out there that Brooke is one of the best that is out there and everybody talking about well Jericho Sims retain him there’s a lot to like there but I don’t think Jericho Sims is a starting center in the league and you certainly have challenges playing him alongside Giannis yeah and if that if that’s where you get to right where it’s like well we had we we couldn’t keep Brooke and couldn’t find anybody so I guess it’s going to be Jericho like that’s this is one of the reasons why everybody’s a little bit still kind of like really like he’s not like Giannis isn’t going anywhere like really and that’s that’s why there’s that skepticism but I think that most of that obviously just comes down how Giannis feels about it and I’m like I want Giannis to stay i just think it’s a better story for him and the league and everybody i think everybody wins if Giannis stays but also it’s like hey if we just like jump to the end here it’s you’re going to need this year to completely re like it’s going to be a long-term process it may be one of those things where they have to pick up somebody off of the somebody out of the G- League take a risk on a guy may have to be a thing where they trade an asset into the draft in order to get somebody late in the round to try and take those kind of opportunities you might have to go you know grab a bunch of guys that are off the street and just be like can any of these guys work out for from from for us in terms of being unexpected you know or maybe you’re able to look into something where Toronto’s you know make looking at everything but one of the things that they’re exploring are major trades for stars and if they go that route hey maybe you’re able to go get Yaka Purle Kelly Lin somebody that’s that’s able to work out some sort of deal to fill in the gap but like it all of this feels like they’re not going to have like the starting center replaced and solid I don’t think by the end of the summer if they do it’s masterful work I think by John Horst uh I mean it sounds like you’re you’re leaving the door open for a potential Demarcus reunion in light of everything we’ve seen last Yeah um I mean and you can and and I’m sure people will push back too with well if if Bobby Portoris opts in or you work out an extension with Bobby Portoris Bobby Portoris and Giannis are your starters in the front court but you’re still back at that spot of okay who is playing behind them then and that’s where the Bucks ran into as good as the fit was quote unquote and how much they could play younger and more athletic and get up and down the floor when they got to that spot in the regular season when Bobby was suspended and Jericho Sims was injured and you just had Giannis and Brook Lopez that’s where you saw everything fall off a cliff in terms of their defense and their rebounding so it’s it’s still a massive lift to try to find even the bench production yeah and I think I do think I have at least at least people in the league believe that they’re they’re going to keep Sims and he’s going to be a guy i think they really do think that he’s got upside and that if that’s a gamble that you’re willing to take you just got to be willing to pivot um that to me is like covering the nuggets i see so many similarities with Milwaukee and Denver and how they built teams under the previous CBA and now are here and are like “Wait what?” Um but one of the things I think that both teams have to do when they’re in this spot when they’re topheavy you have to have options like we yelled about this all year on locked on Nuggets it’s just like “Look man bring in three different centers so that it’s like all right this one didn’t work dario Sarich didn’t work out okay have this this option.” And the Nuggets will say like “We did we had like Dario Sarich and Daron Holmes then Daron Holmes told his Achilles and Dario Sarich got sent to the shadow realm and now we don’t have a backup center but like you just got to have as many options as possible and they got to be pieces that you can roll through in the season for it to be like “Hey we tried this and it worked for a while but now it doesn’t all right we’re waving him we’re bringing in this guy.” You really got to have like a deep scouting unit I think to keep and a personnel scout to keep bringing in guys that can fill in those gaps in order for the depth just the inning eat to get you through the regular season because once you get to the postseason it’s such even though depth has been such a big part of these playoffs thunder depth honestly isn’t it’s not like we’re seeing like dominant four big man lineups it’s just like all right we got three guys we can put in different components that’s really all you got to be able to get to uh there are certainly two other names that are of quite a bit of interest to Bucks fans that we haven’t got into so we’ll take a look at those names on the free agent list for the Bucks coming up next there’s nothing like stepping into your own outdoor space and feeling like you’ve escaped to a personal oasis if you’re wanting to update your patio this season Wayfair has made it so easy to turn it into a space that feels like yours comfortable stylish and ready for summer wayfair has everything you need to level up your outdoor space conversation sets outdoor bars fire pits hot tubs gazeos and yes even the perfect string lights to set the vibe it’s like giving your backyard that resort feel without the resort price tag now I recently picked up a new outdoor dining set and got some new 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there that I’ve long assumed he will be back because I don’t know that there’s going to be all that stout of a market for him yeah I mean look um I’m always kind of of the opinion that the NBA needs to take this more seriously they need to take domestic violence seriously and I think it is always a disservice by us to not mention these things because if we don’t mention it then we are complicit in the NBA’s attempts to just like sweep this under the rug and be like “Nope don’t know what you’re talking about.” Uh and that’s a that’s as much on the MBPA as I think it is on the NBA i think both of those sides need to get in alignment of like hey we gota set some standards and we gota set a high bar here for the the behavior that we anticipate that said that said on KPJ I do think that um I wonder what his market’s going to be because there are teams that will ignore all those kind of issues and there are teams I think they’re recognized like I’ve talked a lot I talked to two scouts this week that said I thought he was by the end of that playoff run one of like their three best players like that’s how good he was in terms of what he was bringing to the table and that’s pretty valuable and from all indications I think that they probably agree with that and again if you’re in their position where you are so limited in what you are capable of doing to add these are the type of decisions that you almost have to make especially if he hasn’t been a locker room problem for you and he hasn’t been a distraction yeah and like that was the bigger part for me too i mean all it takes is one team to show interest and raise that value but I mean we do know the Bucks have been in on him for some time and they thought they were going to sign him last summer before he ultimately went to the Clippers so there is a little bit of that relationship uh to your point too when some of those questions came up about his background Doc Rivers is a guy that has had a relationship with Tailoo and with uh KPJ for a couple of years now and I think that was one of the more frustrating things that you would hear Doc Rivers when asked about what did you guys do like what was your the due diligence that you did here and and how confident are you that this is behind him he has grown from it he has learned and everything else and we just got to I talked to Tailoo and he vouched for him so I I think that was the frustrating part too of you really get an answer there it’s going to hang over him with some teams but to your point um not every team and it just again takes one to say “Okay we liked what we saw leading up to the playoffs and in the back half of that series too is when he started to play better.” They had a really rough first two games in that series um but yeah it just takes one team to say “Look the tools are there he’s got good size and there’s certainly talent that let’s just go buy low on him.” Um the other junior Gary Trent Jr and that market’s going to be much different you would assume for Gary Trent Jr but another guy that you know it’s been kind of the model for the Bucks we just find two guards off the scrap heap you get to play next to Giannis get to knock down some shots you boost your value in the terms of in the sense of Gary Trent Jr it took longer than anticipated and part of that was you know the deeper you got into the season too wondering I get you like him coming off the bench in the role that he has but when you look at this roster he really should be starting and that’s where the team started to perform better yeah um yeah and I think he he does bring a lot i actually really loved his season last year i thought that he brought a lot of what they needed just like the competency it’s surprising to me that the market on him is so low i understand how bad his first stretch out of um to Toronto was and he dealt with a lot of there were expectations I think that his his people had of what he was going to be in the league and that’s always that’s a difficult transition to accepting that you’re a role player that said like you know I would not be surprised if he’s a guy that somebody takes a reach on in free agency based off of you know we talk about it just takes one team if you’re looking for a value play in a free agency market amongst these teams that have money there’s so few of them and there’s but there’s also so few available free agents i just kind of wonder if he’s a guy that some teams might look at as an opportunity to buy low on somebody with you know obviously that end was so bad but it’s also just like man it’s just like all right he had a bad sequence at the end who was also really good for them down the stretch of that season um I actually am I I am a firm believer in the you should buy low on Gary Trent Jr at this point well I I mean it was really a bad play to where he couldn’t handle a ball where I mean all you got to do is hold on to the ball if you’re AJ Green wait to get fouled and it’s a different story do you think he gets eight figures annually it’s a good question i’m tempted to say no because I feel like so much of what we’re going to see over the next span is going to be largely teams not willing to take as big of a risk financially on some of these guys on like role player types yeah yeah that’s what I think we’re going to see i think the the CBA is just it’s dictating such a dramatic Yeah turn of having to restructure how your books are you know what’s the team that that’s kind of looking at him that said um I think there’s I don’t want to rule it out i would be a little bit surprised if it was that high but it’s entirely possible because how many times do we have these numbers where like he got what so I won’t rule it out either yeah and I mean I think that’s the figure where the Bucks are in a tough spot as as we’ve already kind of tiptoed around where they have much more flexibility now than they did the previous two off seasons but it’s still Yeah you have more flexibility but you don’t have very many options that you can pivot to so you kind of have to bite the bullet and just say “Okay if this what it takes this is what we’re paying him.” I think once it starts to approach 10 million is where it gets tough but again what’s what’s plan B because you can say well AJ Green and you can extend him sure but who’s playing behind AJ Green then right i think that that that limitation I think is you know you got to build out so they have like a million things here they have to make up for Dane being out they have to try and compete and contend they have to try and limit the financial impact of this based off of where they’ve been last couple years and the lower expectations without dame oh and they got to do it with no assets in order to facilitate those things it’s tough man this is this is it’s really brutal this is why I wrote a whole thing advocating for them to get rid of the Steppian rule until the end of the CBA because for me these teams like the Bucks I’m just like what do you expect them to do here you put them in the situation where they were operating under one set of rules and now they’re under a completely different one that tells them they can’t do the decisions that they’ve already made um and that limits the opportunities for them and puts them in this situation where it’s look it’s possible they get back everybody on discounts everybody buys back in and they’re able to make this work and they come back with a pretty solid roster but there’s also like a very strong likelihood that it’s going to be like “What are you going to do about your backup exposition?” And the answer is figure it out I guess and that’s all you could really do well I mean and look it’s possible they retain everyone it’s possible they retain everyone but Brook Lopez um but you know even still to your point you don’t have Damen Lillard and this is a team that won 49 and 48 games the last two years so even if you’re bringing back the same group even with Jason Tatum down like where does that really put you in the Eastern Conference of you’re still in that same conversation of you’re five six or seven probably in the East best case scenario so that’s that’s the tough thing um you brought up the CBA i do have one question about that I want to get into with you and um just the rest of that conversation the Eastern Conference and some similarities you mentioned it between the Bucks and the Denver Nuggets we’ll get into that next there’s nothing like the NBA playoffs the intensity the buzzer beaters the fans losing their minds it’s the kind of atmosphere you must experience live and this year’s matchups are certainly delivering if you want in game time makes it fast and easy to get seats even for the biggest playoff games prices on the app actually drop closer to tip off but with killer lastminute deals panoramic seat views and no surprise fees game time is a total game changer you can uh see that exact view before you buy your 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terms of the CBA why did the players sign off on this like I keep coming back to I mean you guys know this is killing the middle class so was it simply the drug testing thing why else would the players association agree to this i think one of the struggles that they have is the strong voiced members of their caucus criticize leadership without generating support from the rank and file um after the 2011 lockout and the changes to the CBA I was in a locker room and a player was asking about a change that was made and another player was having to explain it to him the rep to the union as it and he was like I had no idea and I was just like but this like you voted on like this is what how do you not know no like there was several guys and that’s important to kind of stress here that’s not the average i think that especially now I think most players are way more informed about this stuff but I do think it’s like it’s variable like it is across any group where there’s people that know a lot about the subject matter that impacts them and there’s people that don’t know anything about it and there’s people all throughout the middle of it i think the biggest thing was everyone wanted to keep the good times rolling like these players now especially the stars who have so much power in locker rooms and over other guys’ futures like those guys are making quarter of a billion dollars per deal that’s insane and true and so there’s a lot of like keep the gravy train running versus trying to figure out when it is that you’re going to actually risk a lockout and the lost wages from that because a lot of these players are simply not in a position to do that yeah like this is earning you’ve only got so long in the league you miss six months or a season of a league that’s killer for you and some of these guys it really is like it is very much like hey I do not have enough to get through here and so like those things are are huge I think in those kind of conversations um I I in particular do feel after the 2011 lockout which was primarily directed by bad bad non-player management but also by role players star players took a lot more ownership because they’re so influential and so they took a a much bigger role in these conversations draymond Green Chris Paul all these type of guys right like CJ is a role player but CJ was like most improved player and like was like a number two on a playoff team if you look at this the CBA still very much benefits these star players it doesn’t benefit them completely because an arbit an artificial max is still against their best interests but it does everything else in terms of bonuses and how much they can make and like their influence and power is very much protected and taken care of and so like the middle class like yeah the middle class could get together and make noise but then what you risk is you risk off alienating that star player that you are dependent on and there’s like a lot of like sports locker room like look man I am just a role player he’s the guy with the hard job like that’s how I think a lot of players honestly feel even though I’m always like but you do all the stuff that helps them win there’s lots of guys that score 25 a night um so I think that that dynamic played a role in it as well those are my best guesses without having like been inside the room um coming into the offseason where what was your assumption that would would happen and we’ve seen more and more speculation and quote unquote reporting on it but um there’s no definitive answer yet but where were you thinking things would go with Giannis i thought he was gone how how how is he possibly going to stay they have they have no assets to improve the team they have no cap space flexibility they’re up against these all these limitations dame is out for the season no one’s going to blame him you never get this kind of opportunity where you can leave and still it be okay like LeBron did this in Cleveland and Cleveland fans were like “Yeah we get it.” Like he gave us a championship and three runs like it’s it’s fine like we get it we’re happy for him right you have to be that level you never get this kind of opportunity if he left Bucks fans were going to turn on Giannis they still would have wanted good things for him and they would have understood they would hope that you would get like a good return on it you don’t want to get back diddly squat but I think it’s I his goodwill would not have been squandered um and so when he scheduled that meeting it’s like oh we know how this goes like schedules the meeting and then immediately afterwards the trade request and then nope just silence and I think that’s been the the interesting thing about it um is that no news is good news and I have liked the way that both Giannis’s camp has handled it the Bucks have handled it uh and local reporting has handled it where it’s like immediately you saw the shift from people being like “So here’s what a gap year looks like this is what it would look like for Giannis if he stayed.” Yeah the same week that it was that like no report came out about it um and I I do kind of wonder if some of this is Giannis not wanting to be like “Yep you got my full support whatever you want to do it may be as simple as hey I’m staying unless we get to the end of the summer and you don’t have a center or a backup point guard or a backup shooting guard or a team that can contend then we might have to talk about some things like maybe that’s the case but as it stands right now like I I think it’s amazing i think it’s awesome i think it’s terrific i like I thought he had to be gone because it made the most logical sense from a not just a basketball standpoint for him but also like he’s not the same kid he was when he got here and I’ve seen that so much it’s like it’s okay for him to have grown into yeah I spend a lot of time in LA and I want to be there or I want to you know grow my business interest my brand whatever stuff that they deal with so that that was kind of my thoughts on it but I’m thrilled that it looks like he’s going to stay i think that’s for the best for everybody yeah I think you know everybody feels the same way certainly around these parts but um the one thing I would caution every Bucks fan with is the the point you just mentioned too um it doesn’t mean this conversation’s going away if you get off to a three and 15 start in the season you have some clear holes on the roster and I mean it’s certainly not going away next summer either when he moves even closer to the end of the contract and maybe it’s just the annual thing where he doesn’t ask for a trade but the contract comes up and you had a gap year and you see the pieces aren’t there it is time to move on when I become a a free agent so we may dodge the bullet this summer but the conversation’s not going away anytime soon yeah and it might continue into next season and you don’t really want that um you know the hope I think is look I’ll say this horse in this front office has so often been up against it and it’s been that meme of like how are you gonna wrigle your way out of this one ah nonetheless like they’ve gotten themselves out of this mess so many times where it’s it’s like oh man Giannis has got to be gone and then Horse is like nope I trade for Drew Holiday nope I trade for Damen Lillard nope i fired Mike Budenholzer and gave you the coach that you wanted oh okay that didn’t work i fire I hired Doc Rivers so like you always want your the team to do whatever is necessary for that that elite alltime franchise player and the Bucks have done it over and over again they deserve a lot of credit for that yeah and look if as the trade clearly did not work on the floor to to ship off Chris Middleton for Kyle Kosma um the other trades that happened you could have done without making that trade you could have traded Dylon Wright for Jericho Sims you could have made the Marjon for Kevin Porter Jr trade on the floor didn’t yield the results you were looking for the second apron piece though is huge for this team because if they don’t make that trade and everything else happens and Damen Lillard still tears his Achilles i don’t really see a scenario where Giannis isn’t coming to that realization of it’s not going to happen here if Dame’s out for the year and all you have are veteran minimums to round out your roster so in that sense it could be much worse and could have gotten much darker here for the Bucks you agree with that i I think here’s my question i think going forward because I do think that we’re going to see more and more teams take this approach what is an easier asset to turn into multiple players Chris Middleton or Kyle Kosma at the time of the trade i don’t want to judge it now like y I I think that’s unfair to be like hey Kyle just had a nightmarish postseason stretch values at an all-time low um but at the top like which piece gets you because that I think is what these teams are still trying to avoid which is what’s frustrating me is I keep like screaming at the top of my lungs and just being like guys do you not see you can’t just swap out it’s not Chris Middleton for Kyle Koozma or Michael Porter Jr for Zack Lavine or you have to break these things into smaller pieces that are more manageable under the CBA for less money overall and then try and aggregate them back together to get that component that you’re looking for like you have to take a step backwards in order to go forward in this new CBA that’s how your owners built it and that reluctance is always really interesting because it’s just like well we can’t give up on him he’s a really good player it’s like yes but he doesn’t do X Y and Z that you need it’s great that he does A and B and I’m not saying you don’t need to address A and B but you got to take a step back and A and B says that you have something to do X Y and Z with and that reluctance I think is what is holding a lot of these teams back um last thing since you brought it up a couple of minutes ago what similarities do you see between this this Nuggets team and this Bucks team cuz it on the surface it seems like there’s a lot down to Bucks win a championship with a pretty similar roster build the comps between Giannis and Joic and then all of a sudden know you can’t get out of the first or second round in the case of the Nuggets the Bucks are still hung up on the first but it’s starting to feel like as an outsider it’s drifting closer and closer to you guys are headed down the same road the Bucks have gone down it’s funny because a lot of their path after winning the title was to avoid being Milwaukee and what I mean by that is Milwaukee made I think what what was a very reasonable choice at the time to be like “Hey yeah it’s tough under the CBA for us to to build to add talent but we’re going to keep cycling in guys that we know can play in the playoffs we’re going to have Wes Matthews and Jay Crowder and um all these guys these we’re gonna cycle through veterans instead of developing young talent.” And then the fans are like “Why didn’t you develop any young talent?” And the Nuggets go the exact opposite way and they’re like “We’re going to develop young talent and not get any veterans and we’re going to have Jaylen Picket and Hunter Tyson and Zeke Naji and Pton Watson.” And then none of those guys none of them work out on a significant level because you drafted at the end of the first round going into the second and you’re right back here where you have a sevenman rotation at max because none of them made the kind of jump that you were that you wanted now that caused a lot of tension internally because it was the front office being like “Well they could be good if you played them.” And then the coaching staff being like “If I play them we’ll lose and then you’ll fire me.” Um you know and Bud gets fired two years after winning the title malone gets year gets fired two years after winning the title like the similarities really are pretty stark um and you got two fran two franchise players that I think are really committed to the communities and are are different from a lot of the other superstars around which is you know I think interesting but also really demanding it’s demanding because of how great they are their causes I think this I I picked up on this covering the Nuggets this year the weight of letting down Joic all year dragged on that team’s chemistry of just the constant feeling of like we’re letting him down we’re not good enough like we lost this game even though he had 37 2520 how could we lose this game we got to do more for the big fella gotta help out Joker all these type of I think it’s really I think that honestly wears on a team rather than everybody feeling like they contribute what they can to a team and so I think there’s a lot of comparisons between them and they’re both facing a similar situation with no picks until the end of the very end of the life cycle hoping to get those things replenished in time to be able you know have a little bit of a backs stop it’s tough but there’s both it’s two teams i really do feel like you know their owners regardless of how they voted and I’m sure they both voted they all they voted for the new CDA because the votes were pretty clear but like these are it’s two ownership groups that put their front offices their people in a real bind with what they agreed to yeah it’s they’re certainly two interesting teams to keep an eye on go forward here as um it’s going to be I mean the last do do you buy into the this is going to be the craziest off season we’ve ever seen it’s been talked about much that now I’m kind of like h I mean we’ll see i I think one of the problems is like you have to have teams that are willing to help you make these deals and that means taking on more money for teams that are really bad how many teams can you really find to do that but that said I think there’s a lot of teams that are looking for significant shakeups and we are going to see a lot of movement because the parody era has opened the door it’s funny because it’s just like hey uh the door is open unfortunately the hallway to get to the door is a centimeter and a half so squeeze through there right now get to the door it’s the Nathan for you episode where you get the free TV but you got to go through this room that has an alligator and something else to get the TV um yeah it’s going to be interesting to see what happens with with both these teams the Bucks and the Denver Nuggets in the league as a whole you can uh find them on the Action Network and of course on the Locked On Nuggets show as well matt thanks for your time today great to catch up with you anytime man take care that’ll do it for today’s show we’ll be back with Camille on Friday to take a look at the rest of the Giannis front here for Madam Justin we’ll talk with you guys once again tomorrow on Lockdown Bucks

Bucks’ offseason dilemma: Can they keep Brook Lopez? Will Giannis stay long-term?

Milwaukee’s roster faces major upheaval as free agency looms. Justin Garcia and Matt Moore analyze the Bucks’ options to replace Lopez, potential signings of Kevin Porter Jr. and Gary Trent Jr., and salary cap challenges. The duo explores how recent CBA changes impact Milwaukee’s strategy and dissect Giannis Antetokounmpo’s future with the team. Moore provides insider perspective on player association decisions and draws intriguing parallels between the Bucks and Denver Nuggets.

Tune in for expert insights on Milwaukee’s crucial offseason moves and their implications for the franchise’s championship aspirations.

0:00 Brook Lopez’s future with the Bucks
5:03 Challenges in replacing Brook Lopez
10:50 Kevin Porter Jr.’s market value and history
15:03 Gary Trent Jr.’s potential contract situation
20:41 Why players agreed to new CBA terms
24:19 Giannis Antetokounmpo’s future with the Bucks
30:56 Similarities between Bucks and Nuggets situations
34:03 Expectations for an eventful NBA offseason

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