Milwaukee Bucks: Grades for Khris Middleton’s five-year, $178 million deal
By Adam McGee
Overall grade
Would it have been better if Middleton could have been signed for five-years, $140 million? Absolutely. Was paying the necessary price this summer a must for the Bucks’ chances of contention, in both the short and long term? Without question.
If there was ever really a sense that the Bucks weren’t prepared to pay Middleton and that he was going to be attainable for other teams, there’s no reason to believe he wouldn’t have commanded a four-year max from another team. Players with his combination of size, skill, and two-way utility don’t come along cheaply or in great frequency.
As such, a full $190 million max contract seemed like an inevitability, and the fact that Middleton left anything on the table was a bonus for Milwaukee. It won’t mean too much to the front office in terms of flexibility to add additional players over the year, but it will be appreciated by ownership in any attempts to avoid or limit the scale of luxury tax payments in the future.
The player option for the final year seems like something that can only backfire on the Bucks, but perhaps it was the trade-off for the $12 million he left on the table. The final year of the deal would see Middleton earn in the region of $40 million. If he’s fallen off and nowhere near good enough to be deserving of it at that point, he’ll almost certainly opt in and take his money. If, on the other hand, he’s still going strong approaching 32 years old, he may well opt out leaving the Bucks with the prospect of having to negotiate a deal with him heading into his post-prime.
That’s largely a concern for another day, though, as so much could happen between now and then. In the present, the Bucks will just be excited and relieved that when they return to the floor for action on opening night, Middleton will once again be alongside Antetokounmpo and Co.
BTBP Final Grade: B