On a recent episode of his Lowe Post podcast, ESPN’s Zach Lowe mentioned a detail from the 2015 NBA Draft that many Milwaukee Bucks fans have already heard about. What does it mean in the current context of the team, though?
It was a bone of contention for many who followed the Milwaukee Bucks back at the time, and has been the source of frequent speculation ever since.
When the Bucks selected Rashad Vaughn with the 17th pick of the 2015 NBA Draft, it came as a bolt out of the blue. Most draft big boards and mock drafts didn’t have Vaughn projected to go before the very late portions of the first, and coming off of a mediocre freshman year that had been hit with injury; it wasn’t hard to understand why.
Milwaukee’s decision to take him was subsequently a source of raised eyebrows, as even evidenced by our own Ti Windisch’s focus on Portis in his instant reaction piece on draft night. When talk of a power struggle within the front office emerged, a note that was often added was the divide between those who wanted Vaughn and those who didn’t on that night.
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As such, although it’s not strictly new information, when Zach Lowe brought the subject of Vaughn and Portis up again, in conversation with ESPN’s Bulls writer Nick Friedell on the latest episode of the Lowe Post podcast, it felt noteworthy.
In discussing the merits of recent Bulls draft picks, Lowe said:
"“When they [Chicago] picked Bobby Portis all of like a year-and-a-half ago, everyone in the NBA was like ‘what a genius pick by the Bulls’. I’m not talking about media publicly, I’m talking about team guys on other teams privately. ‘Great pick, man. We really missed on Bobby Portis’.There was a whole thing with the Bucks about John Hammond wanting to take Bobby Portis, and the Bucks shoehorning him into taking Rashad Vaughn; who stinks!”"
Sadly from a Bucks perspective, it’s hard to argue with Lowe’s criticism of Vaughn. Brought in as a shooting wing, Vaughn’s career mark of 30.8 percent from three-point range suggests that perhaps selecting a big man such as Portis (who shoots 33.3 percent from deep for his career) would have done just as much to help in that department.
That’s not to suggest that Portis is without his own issues, but still in spite of a step back this season, Portis has a solid rookie season (7.0 points, 5.4 rebounds in 17.8 minutes per game) to show for his potential worth longer term.
If the mention of Hammond’s desire to select Portis isn’t exactly a revelation in it’s own right, it doesn’t make it any less interesting to think of considering the Bucks’ current frontcourt logjam.
None of the money currently tied up in big men was an issue at that point, and we’ll never know how much, if any of it, may have come about if Portis had been drafted. Greg Monroe was signed a couple of weeks later, John Henson was extended in the following October, and then in this past summer the Bucks added Thon Maker and re-signed Miles Plumlee.
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A serviceable big on a rookie contract could certainly have helped the Bucks with some of those decisions along the way. Indeed, if Hammond had won that particular power struggle, the Bucks current cap situation could well have had a much more palatable look to it.