Who is the Best Player Available for the Milwaukee Bucks at Pick 10?

With time ticking down until the NBA Draft, who is the best player available to the Milwaukee Bucks at 10th overall?

There is always a big debate for every NBA team’s front office and fan base regarding whether they should take a player that fits the team’s needs or the best player available. The debate rages harder when the best player available and the player that fits a need are not the same.

I have heard a lot of discussion recently by many informed Bucks fans and writers regarding this exact topic. What do the Bucks do at spot 10? Should they address need or add talent?

Regardless of how you think those questions should be answered, who would be the Bucks best player available with the 10th pick? I did a little bit of research and some messing around with Big Boards to try and come up with an answer.

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I started at NBA.com, where they have created a consensus mock draft. Here is what they say about it:

"The Consensus Mock Draft is a compilation of the best mock drafts around the web. We bring them together to come up with a good estimate of how the 2016 NBA Draft could play out."

From their research through mock drafts like those from ESPN, Draft Express, CBS, and many others they determined who the most common players selected in each lottery draft slot were and also developed a consensus mock draft. For example, the most common player selected by the Milwaukee Bucks (from the 12 mock drafts cited) was Jakob Poeltl and the player selected by the Bucks in the consensus mock draft was Henry Ellenson.

Using the consensus mock draft it appears that Ben Simmons, Brandon Ingram, Dragan Bender, Buddy Hield, Jamal Murray, Jalen Brown, Kris Dunn, Marquese Chriss, and Jakob Poeltl will not be available for the Bucks to draft with the 10th pick. For this hypothetical exercise, I’ve decided that I will follow that logic as if it is exactly what will happen in the real draft.

So the Bucks will have their pick from a lot of interesting players at the 10 spot including Henry Ellenson, Domantas Sabonis, Deyonta Davis and Denzel Valentine. There are also a lot of players who seem like unrealistic options for Milwaukee but they are certainly in the mix like Tyler Ulis, Malachi Richardson, and Thon Maker.

With all these potential players for Milwaukee to sift through knowing who the best player available might be could be useful. I decided I would look through the NBA Draft 2016 Big Boards of all the sites used by NBA.com to make their consensus draft and make my own Consensus Best Player Available for the Bucks.

Of the 12 sites NBA.com used for their consensus draft, only six of them produced Big Boards. I ranked every player within the top 20 of those Big Boards excluding the nine who were “chosen” before the Bucks selection. That left me with a list of 19 players.

I ranked each player one through 11, where one represents the high rank and 11 represents the low rank, based on where they appeared in the Big Board I was referencing. Then I combined all the rankings together to get a comprehensive list of the best players available for the Bucks.

Here is List One (lower numbers represent “better” players):

Domantas Sabonis – 22
Henry Ellenson – 25
Skal Labissiere – 25
Deyonta Davis – 30
Denzel Valentine – 42
Timothy Luwawu – 45
Furkan Korkmaz – 51
Wade Baldwin – 55
Demetrius Jackson – 62
Dejounte Murray – 63
Tyler Ulis – 67
Malachi Richardson – 72
Taurean Prince – 74
Malik Beasley – 77
Brice Johnson – 78
DeAndry Bembry – 82
Check Diallo – 83
Thon Maker – 85
Ivica Zubau – 86

If you make the cutoff 60 (like I did because I am in charge here) then that leaves you with eight potential picks for the Bucks.

If the Bucks are going to select the best player available then this option suggest that they have three players to look into.

Of these three, the number suggest the Bucks should take Domantas Sabonis. But if Sabonis rubs Milwaukee the wrong way (injured, bad interview, does not want to play for the Bucks, etc) then they would need a backup plan.

After Sabonis there’s a tie between Henry Ellenson and Skal Labissiere. I decided to look into this a little further to determine how to break that tie between Henry and Skal if for some reason Domantas rubbed Milwaukee the wrong way

To do this I revisited the top nine supposedly drafted before the Bucks. I still decided to keep Ben Simmons and Brandon Ingram out of my new list because they are going to be the top two selected according to every Big Board and mock you can find. Besides that I decided to look at every other player in the top 20.

That created a list of 26 players from all of the Big Boards. I then ranked all of those players on a scale of one through 18, where one represents the high rank and 18 represents the low rank, based on where they appeared in the Big Board I was referencing. Then I combined all the rankings together to get a comprehensive list of the best players available.

Here is List Two (remember lower numbers represent “better” players) :

Dragan Bender – 11
Kris Dunn – 17
Jamal Murray – 20
Jaylen Brown – 24
Buddy Hield – 26
Jakob Poeltl – 49
Marquese Chriss – 53
Domantas Sabonis – 58
Henry Ellenson – 59
Skal Labissiere – 65
Deyonta Davis – 68
Denzel Valentine – 83
Timothy Luwawu – 88
Furkan Korkmaz – 95
Wade Baldwin – 98

First off, it is important to note that the numbers from List One cannot be compared to the numbers from List Two (i.e. Sabonis received a 22 in List One but that doesn’t mean he’s a more highly regarded player than Jaylen Brown because of the 24 he received in List Two).

What we see here that is most relevant to the Bucks potentially deciding between Ellenson and Labissiere (if they for some reason want to skip on Sabonis) is that List Two gives more information about the player rankings in List One. Ellenson is actually a better prospect than Labissiere according to these rankings. So the Bucks should take Ellenson if they skip on Sabonis.

Additionally, List Two shows us something else interesting. There are five players with a score of 26 or lower. Most experts, if not all, would expect those five players plus Simmons and Ingram to not be available for the Bucks.

That means the best player with even an outside chance of falling to the Bucks at pick 10 would seem to be Jakob Poeltl. As much as many in Bucks nation would like to see the team land Buddy Hield, Kris Dunn, or Jamal Murray, those options are just not realistic unless the team decides to trade up.

If the order pans out as the majority of experts expect on draft night, and the Milwaukee Bucks want to select the best player available, they should pick Domantas Sabonis.

If for some reason they don’t feel comfortable with him being their guy, Henry Ellenson would represent a solid alternative.

And if things break nicely and the Bucks get lucky they should happily take Jakob Poeltl.

Next: NBA Mock Draft 3.0: Searching For Consensus

Of course, as we’ve learned over time, when the Bucks are on the clock anything can happen. At the very least, interesting decisions await.