Milwaukee Bucks: Grades and reactions for the Malcolm Brogdon sign and trade
By Adam McGee
Trade motivation
Before the sign and trade becomes official and Brogdon officially joins the Pacers following the moratorium, it’s tough to pinpoint one particular reason why the Bucks opted to let the situation play out like this.
Perhaps the team’s owners or Horst will shed light on it at a future date, but Horst in particular has a knack for remaining coy while seeming like he’s saying quite a lot.
In all likelihood, the Bucks’ motivations for not retaining Brogdon, and ultimately agreeing to trade him, were manifold.
I’d guess their gut feeling was that Brogdon’s contract didn’t represent value at that price point, and with that a whole host of wider considerations came into play. Is this the deal and the player they wanted to go deep into the tax for? How confident are they really in Brogdon’s health holding up? Could the Bucks’ success in his absence point to a reduced need to retain Brogdon?
It’s not that an argument couldn’t be made for all of those things from an organizational perspective that would make sense, but there’s also a simpler yet larger point that can be missed while getting lost in the reeds of those minutiae.
The Bucks’ window to win a championship is right now. Winning 60 games and holding a 2-0 lead over the eventual champions in the Conference Finals told us that. The wide array of changes to rosters around the NBA, injuries to elite players for next season, and the re-tooling of many of Milwaukee’s rivals further confirms it. Next year may well be the best chance this Bucks team ever has to win a championship, and considering Antetokounmpo’s long-term future may well be tied to the upcoming season presenting a suitably convincing case for him to sign the supermax, the sense of urgency should be palpable around the organization.
Everything that’s been reported surrounding Brogdon’s foot since he entered the NBA has pointed to a major red flag, and any recent rumblings I’ve heard from around the Bucks have made it clear that concern is very much a pressing one when it comes to projecting his future.
In other words, re-signing him would have been a major risk. I just hope the Bucks gave adequate thought to how risky it also was to let Brogdon leave.
With cap space tied up for the foreseeable future with Middleton, Brook Lopez and George Hill joining Eric Bledsoe on long-term deals, and the hope being that Antetokounmpo will join them on one of the richest contracts in NBA history next summer, landing a high profile free agent won’t be a consideration any time soon.
Perhaps the Bucks could work an upgrade via trade at some point, but that would undoubtedly involve combining picks and multiple of the team’s other core players.
That leaves us at a point where it seems totally plausible that, over the next five years or so, the Bucks’ roster will never be able to return to the talent level at every position they boasted last year. With that in mind, and everything that was achieved last season, willingly taking a step back sure is a choice.
Perhaps health will prove a major stumbling block for Brogdon in Indiana and the contract will look very ugly by its conclusion. For the Bucks, though, even if he was only fully healthy for 2019-20, there’s a case to be made that incredible cost would still have been one worth paying.
With Brogdon, the Bucks may well have been the championship frontrunners. Delivering on that opportunity could also have secured Antetokounmpo’s future for another five years through the prime of his career.
Are they equally as well-equipped to win now with Sterling Brown, Donte DiVincenzo or Pat Connaughton stepping up to take over his minutes? I think even the most optimistic Milwaukee Bucks fan would have to admit they’re almost certainly not.