Milwaukee Bucks: Should they trade their 2019 first round pick?

Using the pick to gain additional cap space

The first, and most likely thing Milwaukee could use their draft pick for in a trade, is to move one of their larger, but expendable guaranteed contracts next season, such as Tony Snell or Ersan Ilyasova. Doing so would give them more cap space to work with entering free agency this July.

Milwaukee will enter this summer in a difficult position with the salary cap, something that was explored in February by Mitchell Maurer of Brew Hoop. I’ll have my own article about their updated cap situation arriving here on Tuesday, but for now I will summarize it briefly for this article.

The Milwaukee Bucks will enter the free agency period starting on July 1 with no available room under the $109 million soft salary cap, and will be above the luxury tax threshold of $132 million as well. It’s likely, however, that they’ll exercise the $1 million buy-out for George Hill‘s $18 million non-guaranteed 2019 contract, and will renounce the substantial $18.75 million cap hold that Nikola Mirotic has. These moves would put the team just under $4 million below the soft cap, and close to $28 million below the luxury tax.

Even with these likely moves, though, the Bucks will not have much money to work with in free agency. If they want to run their team back by retaining their core of Brogdon, Lopez and Middleton, they’ll have to go substantially over the soft cap and into the luxury tax to do so if they cannot move money elsewhere.

Moving one or both of Snell or Ilyasova, however, would change their financial outlook considerably. Both are set to make a combined $18.392 million next season. Moving one or both of the them could give the Bucks the ability to add a solid free agent or two with cap space before re-signing their big three free agents.

Moving Ilyasova would be the easiest option to accomplish this. His salary for next season is just $7 million. The third and final year of his contract in 2020 is non-guaranteed too. It would be excessive, however, to use a first round pick to move such a small contract.

Ilyasova is a serviceable role-player on reasonable money. This makes him a valuable piece for almost any team in the league. A contender may want him as a rotation player. Rebuilding teams will want to take him on now so they could get something in return for him in a trade during the season. It’s quite unlikely, then, that the Bucks would have to attach a first-round pick with him to make a trade work.

Milwaukee would be much more likely, then,  to explore moving Tony Snell with their first round pick. Snell has, for all intents and purposes, two years left on his deal. His salary figure for next season is $11.4 million, and he has a 2020 player option worth $12.2 million, something he’s likely going to exercise given his marginal value since re-signing for Milwaukee a few summers ago.

Snell’s contract, however, may prove difficult, if not impossible to move on draft night. It took the Brooklyn Nets trading two protected first round picks to get out of Allen Crabbe‘s larger, but expiring contract last week. It would probably take at least that for Milwaukee to trade Snell on draft night, something they currently lack the assets to do.

Until free agency plays out, teams will also be very reluctant to take on such significant money without major assets being given in return. Rebuilding teams with a lot of cap room may be able to land significant picks and players during free agency by absorbing large salaries from contending teams looking to clear the required cap space to sign the top players on the market. Thus, any potential suitors Milwaukee could have on draft night are likely to wait until the first few weeks of free agency before considering any offer the Bucks may have. This makes the prospect of using their first round pick to move money very unlikely.