Milwaukee Bucks: Grades for Brook Lopez’s one-year, $3.4 million deal

The Milwaukee Bucks made their second signing of the offseason as they reportedly agreed to terms with Brook Lopez on Sunday. How does the deal grade, though?

Considering the challenging cap situation facing the Milwaukee Bucks this summer, there likely weren’t many people who expected the first week or so of free agency to yield meaningful signings, yet that’s exactly how things have played out.

First reported by Jordan Schultz of Yahoo! Sports and followed up soon after with salary details from ESPN’s Chris Haynes, news broke on Sunday that veteran center Brook Lopez had come to terms on a deal with the Bucks.

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Lopez spent last season with a young Lakers team, in a season that was likely somewhat frustrating for him having spent the rest of his career up until that point in a much more featured role with the Nets.

A move to Milwaukee should offer a fresh start for Lopez, and give the Bucks a chance to finally land a much more stable and consistent presence at the center position.

While the Bucks have tried to address that position in free agency, the draft and with internal development over the last few years, a clear resolution has yet to arise. Lopez should provide the Bucks with a high pedigree option that can take away a lot of that uncertainty.

Signing a player of Lopez’s caliber at such a resonable price seems like a good deal for the Bucks, but just how good is it? Let’s take a closer look at the 30-year-old’s potential role, fit and how his value compares to others on the market this summer.

Value

Signing Brook Lopez at the bi-annual exception is a real coup for the Bucks, and the kind of obvious value deal that has been quickly recognized by fans and analysts around the NBA.

Considering Milwaukee’s consistent inconsistency at the center position, some of the low-cost early free agency deals for capable big men had left many Bucks fans more than a little mournful, but as ESPN’s Kevin Pelton noted, they ultimately got a better option at a better price.

"“Having used the bulk of their nontaxpayer midlevel exception to sign forward Ersan Ilyasova, the Bucks had only their smaller biannual exception to use on a center. Nonetheless, they ended up getting a more accomplished player than the Brooklyn Nets (Ed Davis) and Indiana Pacers (Kyle O’Quinn) did with the $4.45 million room midlevel and a more reliable one than the Washington Wizards (Dwight Howard) did with the $5.3 million taxpayer midlevel.”"

Having recently turned 30, this deal was always going to result in the lowest salary Lopez has earned since the conclusion of his rookie contract. Still, Lopez’s average salary of just just under $18 million per year dating back to the summer of 2012, highlights just how much his $3.4 million deal plays to Milwaukee’s favor.

Lopez may have started to regress just a little bit from his peak ability, but as a player who has demonstrated improved durability as his career has gone on, he still has a lot to offer.

The California native has clear and well-documented defensive deficiencies, yet to focus in on his strengths, only DeMarcus Cousins could arguably match the range of offensive skills and pedigree that Lopez provided among this year’s class of free agency big men.

Inking Lopez to a one-year deal is both a good and a bad thing, as it retains the kind of flexibility the Bucks will need next summer to re-sign Khris Middleton and Malcolm Brogdon, but also creates the possibility of Lopez becoming a key cog in Milwaukee’s system only to be free to leave or in need of a new pay day of his own in the very near future.

In the trade-off, accepting that risk in exchange for what could be a one-year bargain is still incredibly valuable and beneficial to the Bucks.

Role

Often when free agency signings are reported or announced, much of the discussion around the player’s role involves little more than projection and speculation, but that doesn’t seem to be the case in this scenario.

Following a season where he was far from a priority on the court for a team with priorities that likely extended beyond winning, it’s not all that shocking that Lopez opted to take a little bit less money to put himself in a situation where not only can he be on a playoff team, but where there’s a clear path for him to take up a meaningful role.

That certainly applies to the Bucks, where Lopez will have a chance to secure the kind of starting role that may not have been all that easy to find elsewhere in the NBA. In fact, it doesn’t seem like too much of a reach to guess that conversations about that role may have played a factor in his willingness to sign at the bi-annual exception.

Chris Haynes of ESPN, who was among the first to report the deal, even made a note on that front in his own write-up about the deal:

"“Milwaukee is expected to pencil in the 10-year veteran as its starting center.”"

Saying that, rotations are increasingly fluid and will likely be much more in flux with the positive range of options the Bucks will have next season.

A player of Lopez’s caliber obviously offers a potential solution to what’s been a long-time gap in Milwaukee’s starting five, but also gives them another player capable of propping up second unit lineups in spurts in more of a central role.

A combination of those two would likely be ideal for Lopez, giving him a chance to be a front-line contributor to the team’s success while also affording him the chances to star offensively in bursts throughout games and the course of the season.

Fit

Lopez’s fit is by no means seamless, but it gives the Bucks a kind of option and player their roster had been lacking, and shouldn’t be overly difficult to make work either.

First and foremost, age and injury history aside, Lopez was never the kind of ultra mobile big man who was perfectly suited to switch defensively and chase wings and guards around the perimeter. Even on the interior, Lopez’s defense has long been a source of scrutiny and certainly isn’t likely to be a catalyst for positive change in Milwaukee’s play on that end.

On the offensive end, though, Lopez should make for an excellent complement for the Bucks’ best players, and a player who fits a lot of the criteria for what Mike Budenholzer looks for from his centers too.

Like almost every center in the league, Lopez is far from a deadeye from three-point range, but just being capable from that distance automatically puts him in the upper echelon of floor spacing big men.

In spite of always being a capable mid-range jump shooter, Lopez attempted just 31 three-pointers throughout the first eight years of his career. Over the last two years, he has transformed his game by attempting 712 shots from deep and making a respectable 34.5 percent of them.

Lopez’s efficiency could certainly do with improving, but it’s his willingness to let fly from deep that will automatically open up the floor for teammates.

That will play to the strengths of Giannis Antetokounmpo, and it should also create higher quality looks for Lopez too. Since adding the long ball to his game, Lopez has been stuck on lesser teams where he commanded significant attention. That certainly won’t be the case with the Bucks as Antetokounmpo’s drive-first mentality and Middleton’s gravity should lead to high percentage looks for Lopez.

That should lead to higher percentage three-point looks for Lopez and create the potential for improved efficiency from distance, but it doesn’t mean his interior play should be overlooked either.

Lopez is a skilled and polished post-scorer of a caliber this Bucks team hasn’t had the luxury of playing with. His career average of 20.7 points per 36 minutes over the course of nine seasons has largely been built upon Lopez’s touch and ability with his back to the basket, and as a bail-out option or a feature of lineups when Antetokounmpo goes to the bench, it will open up a range of possibilities for Milwaukee.

On the offensive end, the addition of Lopez frankly leaves the Bucks as something of an open book in terms of what they can achieve. Lopez can play on the outside when he shares the floor with players like Antetokounmpo and Eric Bledsoe, while in lineups with Middleton and Brogdon he could anchor a spaced-out offense from the paint.

Lopez has been an inconsistent rebounder rather than a flat-out bad rebounder over the course of his career, yet him and Antetokounmpo will make for an interesting pairing in that department and more generally in a defensive sense.

The Bucks’ Greek star has the agility, the athleticism, the quickness and, increasingly, the strength to cover up some of Lopez’s deficiencies on the defensive end. What Lopez can do defensively is block shots, though, and paired with Antetokounmpo, they should make for a large and imposing duo at the rim.

Overall Grade

Bad decisions and signings have been an all too familiar sight for Bucks fans in recent years, and as a result, there are many who’ve developed a relentless sense of pessimism or, in some cases, criticism surrounding everything the front office does.

With that in mind, it speaks volumes of just how good this signing was that it received almost universal acclaim from fans on social media, and pundits and experts across the wider NBA sphere.

Signing one of the league’s best scoring centers, who is a former All-Star, for just $3.4 million is a good deal in a vacuum, even if Lopez is crossing over into the latter stages of his career.

Considering Milwaukee’s situation only makes the move all the more positive, though. With limited options available to them this summer, the Bucks have managed to significantly bolster their depth, do nothing to further damage their already challenging long-term cap flexibility, and sign players who fit well with their existing core while also representing many of the changes the team’s new coach is hoping to introduce.

Lopez’s signing makes the Bucks more talented and more dynamic, and even if he doesn’t end up being a long-term piece of the franchise’s future, he could certainly help in creating a template that Thon Maker or others may be asked to step into over time.

Next: Win in 6 Podcast #233: Reacting to the Brook Lopez signing

This deal isn’t perfect as there’s a very strong chance that the Bucks will be left to rue not having Lopez on a similarly cheap deal for another 12 months when next summer comes around. But considering the options available to them this year, this is likely as good as it realistically could ever have got for Milwaukee in the offseason of 2018.

Overall Grade: A