The Milwaukee Bucks are a Confusing MESS

The Milwaukee Bucks are a Confusing MESS

Yo, what’s going on y’all? It’s Con and what is happening with the Milwaukee Bucks? It felt like they would probably be involved in this offseason heavily with Giannis rumors. Is he going to get traded? Is he not? If he does become available, where does he land? That is kind of the biggest storyline going into this summer. But today, day two free agency begins with the Bucks making two unbelievably stunning moves that have nothing to do with Giannis or maybe it does because it’s all kind of a consequence of him and trying to make him happy. There’s a lot to talk about and it begins with Miles Turner. Uh I wake up this morning and you know I slept like three hours because I was up till like 6 a.m. working on my free agency video last night and I see the notification from Shams that Miles Turner has agreed to a 4-year $107 million deal. I’m like okay cool. He’s back with the Indiana Pacers. That’s nice to see. Good for them. You know, wait for Hallebertton to get back next season and they’ll be good to go. But then I kind of do a double take and look at the jersey swap underneath and he’s in a Bucks jersey. Miles Turner signed with the Milwaukee Bucks. Not only does he leave the Pacers, which felt like it was not going to happen, it really felt like they were going to pay him after making the finals. All the reports, at least that I saw, were that the Pacers were willing to go into the tax. But now it seems like the Hallebertton injury might have pushed them back a little bit, made them a little bit skittish about paying up for this team, unsure of how Hallebertton might look when he comes back from injury. And obviously next season, they’re not going to be a real contender like they would have been otherwise. So they apparently only offered him like $20 million a year. The Bucks up that above 25 million and they steal him away. Miles Turner joins with the Pacers biggest rival in the Eastern Conference. It is an absolute stunner. And obviously that changes everything for Milwaukee. He is a great pickup. It’s just like you got a younger, better version now of what Brook Lopez has done for you the past couple of years. But then I also thought, okay, well, where are they going to get this money? And that’s when the big bombshell drops that Damen Lillard has been cut and waved and stretched from the Milwaukee Bucks. Dame’s time with the Bucks is over after two seasons. He is an unrestricted free agent just on the market coming off the Achilles injury that of course ended his playoff run early against the Pacers in round one. And this bombshell is what made me have to make this video. I can’t think of a situation I’ve ever seen quite like Damen Lillards. And it really sucks to think about how he was in Portland for so long. They were really competitive, but then they went towards this rebuild and overall they didn’t do enough to put talent around him. So he says, “Finally, after being so loyal, I want to get traded.” And he ends up in Milwaukee where it feels like he’s got a real chance to compete for a ring. It’s him and Giannis and Tedakumbo, by far the best player Dame has ever played with. They’ve got some good pieces around them like Chris Middleton and Brook Lopez and Bobby Portoris. It really feels like the Bucks are going to have a real shot at winning the Eastern Conference, but then they don’t look that great, that convincing throughout the season despite the record looking pretty solid. They fire Adrian Griffin, bring in Doc Rivers, and then they lose round one against the Pacers in large part because Giannis isn’t able to play in that series. Even if Giannis did, do they win? Do they beat the New York Knicks? I don’t think they beat the Boston Celtics in the conference finals, but they might have at least picked up a playoff series win, building off their inseason tournament win, which ends up being the biggest accomplishment of the Damen era in Milwaukee. Imagine telling a Bucks fan that a couple of years ago, it was a trade that I really felt like made sense for the Bucks to take a swing and it just crashed and burned. This season, again, they’re underwhelming, probably more underwhelming this time. It feels like things are kind of coming off the rails for Milwaukee. They end up trading away Chris Middleton. Brook Lopez is declining. They lose again in the first round. This time with Damen Lillard tearing his Achilles and it’s like going into the summer. Are they going to have to trade Giannis because the future is so bleak. They have no more picks, no way to upgrade. And without Dame, they really don’t stand a chance. And now Dame is gone. That’s it. It was maybe the most nightmare scenario you possibly could have painted for the Dame era in Milwaukee. both for him after again being so loyal. He gets a chance to play somewhere where he can actually compete and it goes nowhere near where it felt like it was supposed to, but also for the Bucks giving up Drew and all those assets to get Giannis Damen Lillard, the best player that Giannis had ever played with. And it just completely came crumbling down at basically every single possible point. And now we get this hyper unique situation unlike almost anything I’ve ever seen where Dame is a free agent. And because the Bucks waved him, Dame still gets all the money from that contract. He’s practically getting paid $22 million over the next 5 years. That’s how it works capwise. If Dame tells himself that’s the way it’s going, then if I’m him, I probably don’t care that much about the financial situation at my next destination. I’m kind of now just looking, okay, we’re going to get paid like at least a mid-level exception or so and compete for a championship. And it’s not going to be this season. I wouldn’t be shocked if he does sign this off season to uh set himself up in a situation to rehab and go into next year. I imagine it’d be like a two-year deal. This season, he just rehabs. Next year, he becomes the part of something bigger. And yeah, Dame isn’t going to be Damen Lillard that we once knew with the past couple of years showing that he’s declining a little bit. The defense is not great. It’s never been great, but it’s definitely further fallen. But even still, even off an Achilles injury, I mean, just the upside of Damen Lillard, who has for his whole career been one of the best shotmaking guards in the entire sport, like what team that wants to compete wouldn’t take a flyer on a guy of that talent? So, suddenly his market feels like it’s going to be feverish, assuming again that teams have the money, have the situations that he’s interested in. Again, this might all happen next summer. But even still, now Damen Lillard out of absolutely nowhere becomes the most intriguing storyline coming out of Milwaukee. Is it Miami who just takes a flyer on him next season and tries to see if maybe him coming over now with Tyler Herro and Bama Deio and decent role players can make something happen in a very uncertain Eastern Conference even more so now it feels like after the last couple of days does he go to like a Los Angeles like would he be willing to join up with the Lakers? I don’t think Damon Luca makes sense as a back court but you know they’re always going to get in conversations. the Houston Rockets like Fred Van Vleet. It feels like Dame would be a bit of an upgrade over him and you bring him in or you have both of them on the roster. If Dame’s willing to not take that much money and now you have Dame and you have Kevin Durant. A big offensive punch. You’ve still got all your young talent, all your defense. Like Orlando, I think makes sense if he wants to go there. Uh really almost anywhere. Boston. Could he go to Boston now? And he just ends up there next season playing alongside Jason Tatum. It’s Dame. It’s Derrick White. It’s Jason Tatum. It’s Jaylen Brown. if they get a big man suddenly again it feels like the Celtics might be the team to beat out East. There are a million possibilities that are flying around my head and a million others I didn’t even mention in that quick discussion. Those are just the first teams that came to mind. But Dame is suddenly now a free agent. And again, I know he’s not going to be or we don’t know what he’s going to look like coming off the Achilles injury. But I would be willing to take a bet that a Hall of Fame guard and NBA 75 player is still going to be pretty good. He’s still going to be worth at the very least like a mid-level exception type of contract. any number of teams I believe would be willing to take a flyer on him. And this also now brings us back to the Milwaukee Bucks. Like what does their future look like? Because now they have a $22 million cap hit for the next five seasons. That is a ton of dead money. Especially in today’s first apron, second apron, all these financial restrictions CBA era that severely handicaps the Milwaukee Bucks. They’re essentially, when you consider, you know, that they had to wave and stretch him to get the money from Miles Turner, paying Miles Turner nearly $50 million over the next four seasons, that is a lot of money. And when you take a look at their depth chart, this still isn’t a very good team. Like, Giannis is unbelievable. If there’s anybody that could will this team to a decent record all things considered, it might be him. And maybe we’re in for this Giannis 35 12 and 8 MVP type season, I wouldn’t put it past him. But that’s not going to be enough to compete in the Eastern Conference. At least not when you get to the playoffs. Like, who’s their second best player? It probably is Miles Turner, and I love Miles Turner, but he can’t be your second best player on a team that is actively trying to compete. Like, Kyle Koosma, could he get into that conversation? If that’s even a discussion, you’re in a bad spot. Bobby Portoris is fine as a backup big. Like, I like some of their role players in Torren Prince and Gary Trent Jr. and AJ Green and Ryan Rollins, but like Kevin Porter Jr. is their starting point guard right now. Sure, they brought in like a Gary Harris and maybe they could make a couple of other fringe moves, but it feels like this team, sure, they got better today than they would have been otherwise with Dame out next season, but they’re still nowhere near actively competing for a championship. And if I’m Giannis, I’m definitely not satisfied with what I see in front of me right now. The report is that he recruited Miles Turner, but there’s also the Chris Haynes report that Giannis wasn’t happy with all of this, the way it went down with them cutting Damen Lillard. Maybe it’s just because they kind of blindside him, which by the way, the Bucks have shown they’re not afraid to blindside anybody. Drew Holidayiday, Chris Middleton, Damon Lord, it doesn’t matter. You could potentially be on the chopping block. U but that could also just be, you know, James Camp, which Chris Hayes is close with, saying stuff about Giannis. I I don’t know. I’m not going to look into it too much. I think it just somewhat delays him inevitably asking out or having to be traded. This does not save Giannis’ time with the Milwaukee Bucks. I don’t think this guarantees them, oh, we’ve got a few more seasons at least. If anything, I feel like this puts them in an inescapable hole even further. At least going into next season, you could sell Giannis that Dame’s gonna be back and we’ll make the right moves. And if he’s still at, you know, Damian Lillard level, maybe we can compete in this Eastern Conference. I mean, maybe you’re just trying to sell him on the fact the East is super weak and Miles Turner is a good addition. Dame wasn’t going to be here anyways. I don’t know. I I have no idea how to feel about all this that’s gone down. I mean, I guess I don’t like it for Milwaukee. I really feel like this was desperate. And I guess you got to get desperate when you’re trying to keep Giannis and Tedakumbo in town. But I think long term it would have just been smarter to say, “Hey Giannis, we don’t know what we’re going to do. Do you want to move on? If so, we can get a bunch of assets back for you and let you go somewhere else.” As opposed to completely ruining their cap sheet for the next five seasons, signing Miles Turner, who is going to be tradable. I mean, if they decide to blow it up at some point, it’s very easy to trade Miles Turner. He’s a really good player, someone I think anybody would want. But also, how insane is it that after all these years of Miles Turner trade rumors, he finally moves in free agency after the Pacers make the finals? And now there’s this crazy domino effect of the Hallebert and Achilles injury that leads to the Miles Turner trade that maybe affects things here in Milwaukee that leads to Damon Lillard getting cut and wherever he goes, it’s going to be looked back on as this crazy butterfly effect moment in this recent NBA history after we go through the next few years. So yeah, I guess those are my thoughts on the Milwaukee thing. If anything, I think the events of today just hurt the Indiana Pacers more than it helped the Milwaukee Bucks and made things a lot more complicated with Giannis. I really do feel so bad for Pacers fans. I, you know, seeing the Thunder play them in the finals and over the course of this playoff run gain so much respect for the Indiana Pacers. I wanted there to be a rematch at some point. I was hoping that after next season, you know, Hallebertton rehabs, he comes back and in 2027, maybe it’s Thunder Pacers again to go ahead and run this thing back one more time. But with Miles Turner gone, I think it’s going to be a big reset period for the Indiana Pacers. He doesn’t, you know, make or break everything for them. But having that stretch big, I think is super super valuable for Tyrese Halbert. And the way that offense runs, they can still absolutely recover. They’ve still got Seakum and when Hallebertton comes back, you know, everything’s going to look worlds better. They still got Nemart and Mat and all these guys. But especially now that I see that the ownership isn’t willing to pay the tax, it makes me worried about them getting back to the NBA finals. But for the moment, those are my thoughts on the Milwaukee Bucks and the whole situation. Let me know where you think Dame should go or where he will go if you think those are two different things. What do you think this does for the Giannis situation? Do you like the Miles Turner sign? Where do the Pacers go from here? Do you think the Bucks can realistically compete in any way in the Eastern Conference? That is the big question at the moment. But for right now, I appreciate you watching. Leave a like and subscribe if you enjoyed. Hit the notification bell so you don’t miss out on future videos. I’ll see you all later. Real one say back.

The Milwaukee Bucks just shocked the NBA world by signing Myles Turner unexpectedly away from the Indiana Pacers before waiving Damian Lillard after two years with the Milwaukee Bucks and tearing his achilles in the first round of this year’s NBA Playoffs. It ends an era as the Bucks scramble to keep Giannis Antetokounmpo happy and prevent a trade that still feels inevitable when you think about it. Let’s talk about it.

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0:00 – Intro
0:29 – The Bucks signed Myles Turner???
1:46 – The Bucks waived Damian Lillard?????
3:15 – The Dame era went about as bad as possible
4:17 – Where could Dame go next?
7:01 – This really doesn’t save the Bucks at all
8:54 – A Giannis trade still feels inevitable
9:52 – I feel so bad for Pacers fans
11:20 – Outro