Grading The Bucks’ offseason

Grading The Bucks’ offseason

So, I’m recording this on July 17th, and it seems like right now, John Horst is done making big moves this off season. I mean, he just came out and did an interview where he said, “I’ve done everything I could this off season,” implying that he’s done making moves and that nobody should expect further moves. And so, at this point, I want to evaluate what he’s done. And we’ve got the list of the things that he’s done right here. And real quick, before we get into that, I will also mention what he hasn’t done. And really the one major I guess you could say two, but the one major thing he hasn’t done is trade Kyle Kosma. And then you could also say trade Giannis, which obviously is a good thing, but I’m just saying that’s one thing that could have happened that hasn’t happened. And so the Bucks off season here. I want to grade it. And I’m going to say I honestly didn’t even think of my actual grade I was going to give until I started yapping. And I like doing stuff on the fly. So I’m going to give it right here. Maybe I’ll edit it once I’m done talking it through. But I’m thinking I’m going to give this a strong B+. I’m even possible possibly moving towards an A minus, but I’m going to keep it at a B+. And overall, when I look at this in totality, the big thing I like is just valuable contracts, man. Very tradable and valuable contracts where every single player I would say is on a team friendly deal. The one that you could argue isn’t is Miles Turner. The contract in itself is probably just like what you should be paying for Miles Turner, maybe a tick above. I mean, it’s more than the Pacers reportedly offered, at least originally. It seems like with the stuff they’ve been saying, Rick Carlo coming out that they would have matched it if they had the opportunity, but their original offer was less than this. This is probably about like what Miles Tur deserves to get paid. I wouldn’t say it’s a team friendly deal, but it’s what he deserves to get paid. And then when you consider you lose Damen Lillard at this point that doesn’t mean that much to me. But you’re still paying his full contract for five years, 19 million every year. That part of it, it’s tough by itself to fully get behind. By itself alone, if that’s all that happened, that’s not great value like use of assets. You know, that’s not a great use of assets when you think that, you know, maybe next year, next offseason, Dame Lord could have been worth something. having to pay him for five years. That’s not a great situation at all. And then Dame Miles Charter’s contract is fair, but it’s not like a huge steal when you add in the 19 million for a year and losing Dame. That part of it brings things down a little bit for me. But when I look at everything else that the Bucks have done, it just seems like they have a possibility to move back towards flexibility to make moves. Now, the Bucks aren’t done yet. I think if the Bucks stay pat as they currently are, they’re going to have almost no chance. But it makes it like to where I feel like the Bucks are one maybe two moves away and now they have a chance to make one or two moves because all of these are good deals. Bobby Portoris for a little less than 15 million a year. You could argue that he’s not like the most modern player and things like that. But less than 15 million a year, you’re talking like a tick higher than Sam Hower numbers. You’re talking like a tick higher than Sam Merrill numbers. And Bobby Poris is obviously better than those guys. And now Nasreed is a much better version. He’s a much more modern version of Bobby Portoris. He’s a better defender. He can actually create off the dribble a little bit more than Bobby Portoris. Um where Bobby Poris is more of like a post big and up three catch and shoot three-point shooting big. Um but with that being said, he’s like maybe he’s twice as good as Bobby Poris. Maybe. But I don’t even think that he’s not twice as good. What am I talking about? Maybe he’s like 1.5 times as good. But he’s getting paid more than twice as much as Bobby Portoris, right? It’s five years,$125 million. That’s 30 million a year. Bobb’s getting paid less than 15 million a year. I mean, when you look at where contracts are going, like Bobby Poris is at least going to be able to give you something. And for less than 15 million a year, that’s not that much uh money to where that’s something that will have value that um if the Bucks need to make a move at that position. Jericho Sims, it’s one year basically almost no money with a player option. I think that’s a very good s uh signing to bring back. A guy that’s just very flexible defensively um and maybe a little bit better rebounding wise than uh than Miles Turner. I think he’s a little bit ne less necessary to this team now that we have Miles Turner because before Brook Lopez and Bobby couldn’t switch defensively. Now Miles Turner can a little bit more. So that’s not he can move his feet better than Brook Lopez obviously. So it’s not as glaring of a need. But again, that’s just another thing that could maybe sweeten a pot at the trade deadline, even if he isn’t super needed for the Milwaukee Bucks. Um, because it’s just a tiny year, tiny deal. And then Gary Trent Jr., this one is pretty wild. I mean, 7.5 million for two years. So, it’s really like 3.8 million for the one year that’s guaranteed. And like I talked about how Sam Merrill, Sam Hower are guys that are getting paid like 10 million around there, 10 12 million. And Gary Trent, without a doubt, is better both than both those guys. Without a stinking doubt, you know, he’s not perfect. Sometimes he over gambles defensively. We saw bonehead stuff in the last game of uh playoffs, but this man is capable of going off and getting you buckets. And on a game-to-ame basis, he’s okay defensively. And he gets he’ll get you about 15 points a night and with great shooting. So, you feel like he’s definitely worth more than this. And again, I don’t want to talk about the idea of trading all these guys because Gary Trent Jr., I love him for this Bucks team. But with that being said, it’s just another guy that if you have to, if you see AJ Green is playing great, he even takes a leap in his development. Ryan Rollins takes a leap in his development and you have to make a Koozma deal happen. Like that’s something that will be worth quite a bit to a contending team at the trade deadline to get Gary Trent Jr. on almost no money. Kevin Porter Jr., same thing. I mean, he’s a risky guy in terms of it what to expect from him. You don’t really know. If you look at the first half of the year in the Clippers last year, it was terrible. With the Bucks, if you look at his performance there, this is a massive steal. And even if he’s just like not quite as good good as he was when Dame was out last year with the Bucks, even if he’s a little bit lesser than that, this is still a huge deal. So, I like that. Um, talked about the Miles Turner, Cole Anthony on a minimum. I’ve talked about how I like that fit. I like that move. Torian Prince I don’t love bringing back, but on almost no money, you get some somebody that’s the best catch and shoot player in the league last year at a position of need of small forward. I mean, I’m not as much of a downer on him as other Bucks fans are where I feel like he’s fine if you play him 15 20 minutes a night. It’s just I would love him out of this my starting lineup. And if they move him to his correct role this year, just 15, 20 minutes, go out there, not be horrible defensively, and just be able to knock down the threes off kickouts, he can do that job great. And so getting that for little money. Um, again, that could be something of value to other teams. And it could at least be a value for the Bucks for 10 to 15 minutes a night, maybe 20 minutes, especially while Koozma’s still on the Bucks. Boglejube, I like that pick actually quite a bit for the Bucks. Um, there’s some people talking about Tyrese Proctor. He just dropped 35 in a summer league game. And I get that, but at the same time I don’t really because it’s like he’s 6’6. He has a 6’7 wingspan. He’s a two guard. We already are so loaded at the two guard position. About to get to Gary Harris, Gary Trent Jr., AJ Green, Ryan Rollins. We just didn’t need another. We don’t have even the room to play another two guard. And so it’s like, yeah, he’s much more NBA ready than Boglejube, but I would rather just take a swing at a position that maybe could change change things for the Bucks in a year or two um if Bogle Jube works out. And I’m watching this summer league and he’s definitely raw in some ways. He definitely needs to get stronger, but there’s definitely stuff to like there. There’s definitely talent there. And there’s definitely some feel with him, too, especially in transition. There’s quite a bit to like in Bogle Joob. So, I like that pick actually quite a bit. It’s a 47th pick. I’m not expecting much of anything, but just that there’s size or there’s length, there’s height, there’s some feel, there’s some touch. There’s definitely things to like with Bogle Jube, and I’m I’m happy with that pick. Um, resigning Livingston to a minimum. I think that’s great. I again, I’m not blown away by Livingston, but he’s moving in the right direction every year. If you just watch him in summer league, even in the G-League last year, he’s going in the right direction. I still am not convinced he’s like a really good NBA player right now, but I think he’s getting to the point where he probably could play NBA minutes and he’s still only 21 years old. So like you would expect three, four, five years from now he’ll probably be a solid NBA player and just to keep him in your roster in your situation um a guy that’s going the right direction. I love that. And then Gary Harris, this is one I don’t like, but it’s not hurting the Bucks so much by itself. It’s a minimum, so I’m not terribly mad at it. And if it invol involves like AJ Green or Gary Trent gets traded in the future and you’re doing this for depth, it makes a lot more sense. If they don’t, then this makes no sense. Um, I would rather a guy like people online have talked about Caleb Hustan, who I believe just got picked up by the Hawks. There definitely other pieces I would have preferred than Gary Harris, but again, it’s not the end of the world. It’s guys that I would prefer, but I don’t think would have been that big of difference makers anyway. Um, so that one I don’t like, but it’s not a big deal that I don’t like. It wouldn’t have been the minimum signing that I would have made. So, that one is the one I could say I I really don’t like, but it’s still not that big of a deal. And so, overall, I like what John Horse has done. What I said going into the offseason was bring back all the young guys, take a couple swing swings on young guys available and out there. That part he really didn’t do, but he got Miles Turner when I didn’t expect that to be possible. And so, that’s going to make the Bucks flexible. And the last thing I haven’t really gotten into is the lack of a Koozma deal. And I actually like that as long as they are in agreement, that is going to come in the future. That is going to come at the trade deadline. But I do agree with not doing it now just because I talked about this in my live stream yesterday. Somebody was like, “Well, what if his trade value drops this year?” It’s impossible. His value is as low as it possibly could be. He’s coming off the worst series ever played by anybody ever. When you look at the amount of chance that he got in the first round and how terrible he was, he was bad, at least as bad as anybody has ever been in the playoffs. And coming up and this year, you would expect he can’t get any worse in the regular season. He’ll probably be able to put up some type of decent okay numbers, a little bit better than what the taste that is in the mouth of people like looking at Koozma right now. And worse comes worse, even if he’s just awful all season up until the trade deadline. Even then, it would still be like the same view of him that it there is right now. But at least then a team potentially trading for him would say, “All right, well, now at least we only have to take on one and a half years of his contract rather than two full years of his contract.” And then on top of that, there’s a bunch of guys that are getting much more of an opportunity now with Damen Lord being gone to where their trade value could go up to where you could potentially throw in Kevin Porter Jr. with um Koozma to go and get a guy like Wiggins. Maybe you throw in a guy like AJ Green with Koozma to go get a Herb Jones. I’m just throwing out like hypotheticals. Obviously, like I like those guys, but I I also know that we need to move off Koozma. And I think that’s going to be possible to be done at the trade deadline much easier than it is right now. So, overall, I like John Horse off season a lot. Um there’s not a lot different than I would have done. Overall, Horst, his job as a Bucks GM has been bad. If I was the owner, I would have fired him. Uh, that trade was unforgivable because if you look at this team, if you just replace Koozma with Chris Middleton, forget the AJ Johnson piece, forget the pick swap. If you just did that, this team is looking like a team that has a chance to win a championship. Um, just that alone, especially when you look at Chris Middleton as a one-year expiring deal, that is like extremely easy easy to trade if you had to trade it at this trade deadline versus Kyle Koosma. And then, uh, on top of that, um, you look at it and, uh, wait, where was I going with that? Chris Milton, Kyle Kosma, uh, I forget I forgot where exactly where I was going that, but yeah, that that trade was uh, catastrophic. Oh, yeah. And then on top of that, everybody was like, wait till the offseason, second apron. But there was nothing that was done with the second apron. They didn’t make any of the trades that the second apron helps you make. Um even like the Miles Turner deal, they they were able to do that without the Second Apron, I believe. And even if so, like they could have just traded Pat Coneton at the trade deadline with AJ Johnson and gone under the second apron. But instead, they ended up trading Chris Middleton um and uh AJ Johnson for Kyle Kosma. And then on top of that, still ended up trading Pat Coneton with two second round picks to help lower the salary. So it would have been much better if they had just done Conetan AJ Johnson at the trade deadline and not taken on a huge liability and then if you had to you could have moved on from Middleton this off season if it didn’t work out last year. So overall like I’m saying my my overall point is indefensible that move from John Horse the five picks for Crowder the fact that he’s just whiffed on almost every draft pick that he’s had. Um, and some of them were good picks where guys were drafted right after like he had was it the 23rd pick in that draft where he drafted RJ Hampton. It did get traded to be fair, but I mean there were guys available in that draft and that trade didn’t work out at all for the Bucks. There was Jane McDaniels after like there have been plenty of misses where there have been guys after and so his drafting’s been terrible. The Jay Crowder trade, the trade at the deadline unforgivable. Overall, I think John Horse has been a very bad GM for the Bucks. But this off seasonason, I’m gonna say I gotta give it up. He’s done about pretty much everything I would want him to do. And so I’m gonna give him either a strong B+ or a light A minus. Um, well done, John Horse. And last offseason, last thing I’ll say, last offseason, he did a good job kind of with the fact that you got Gary Trent Jr. Um, he got Torian Prits on a minimum. Like those were fine moves. Dylan Wright at the time looked like a solid move, but at the same time it was like those aren’t really decisions as much as like you’re just taking guys that want to go play with Damon Giannis. It’s not like you’re the one luring them. You’re just kind of taking guys that any GM would take at that money. But this offseason, I think, has been a little bit more savvy than that. Like getting the negotiations down to where you’re able to get these guys on that those level of deals. That’s very well done. I don’t know who’s, you know, if that’s all him, but regardless, he’s leading the way and that’s all that’s, you know, great stuff. You got to give him credit for Bogle Jube draft pick. I like and the decision to go get is great, too. So, um, yeah, I think that this has been a very good offseason for John Horst and just got to hope and pray that a good Koozma trade is going to come down the pipeline and he doesn’t take back a guy like an RJ Barrett and he go gets goes and gets a guy that could be a missing championship piece like a Wiggins, maybe a Herb Jones, maybe even Maybe if we have a breakout year from a guy that at the guard position and Koozma has decent numbers, maybe we could even get like a Trey Murphy at the deadline. But either way, so far this has been a very good offseason for John Horst and I’m not mad at it. But let me know if you are. Drop a comment. Hit that like and subscribe if you wanna.

Grade for the NBA offseason for the Milwaukee Bucks #bucks #milwaukeebucks #nba
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