Milwaukee Bucks: Ersan Ilyasova’s future impacted by season suspension

By Jordan Treske | Mar 19, 2020

ATLANTA, GA - DECEMBER 27: Ersan Ilyasova #7 of the Milwaukee Bucks looks on during a game against the Atlanta Hawks at State Farm Arena on December 27, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images) /

The ripple effects of the 2019-20 NBA season being suspended due to the coronavirus grows by the day and the same goes for the future of veteran Milwaukee Bucks forward, Ersan Ilyasova.

We’re a week out from when the NBA deciding to suspend its 2019-20 season due to the coronavirus. For the Milwaukee Bucks, their hiatus has been a little longer with it being 10 days since they last played an NBA game.

This brave new world we live in in the wake of this outbreak across the globe has stopped life as we know it, beyond just basketball being played. Livelihoods and futures for NBA players and professional athletes as a whole have been disrupted as well and there’s no knowing how much of an impact this break will have until we can resume our normal ways of living, at the very least.

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Take Bucks veteran forward, Ersan Ilyasova, for example.

Before the Bucks’ season was put on pause, Ilyasova had increasingly fallen out of the team’s rotation, save for a spot start filling in for the injured Giannis Antetokounmpo, in light of the addition of Marvin Williams.

From that standpoint, it was easy to wonder what that would mean for his future in Milwaukee beyond this season. But now, there’s a different kind of question being asked altogether when it comes to the Turkish veteran’s future in his longest NBA home.

As ESPN’s Bobby Marks recently detailed, Ilyasova is one of 40 NBA players who have guarantee dates included in their contracts, all of which will certainly be impacted by the NBA’s season being halted by the coronavirus. Ilyasova’s $7 million is currently slated to guarantee on June 27 as both Marks and Basketball Insiders’ Eric Pincus have noted.

But with the NBA’s calendar disrupted with this worldwide event, it’s only one of numerous hoops they have to jump through in an attempt to recalibrate their season and overall calendar. And that’s only scratching the surface when having to deal with the logistics of rearranging the season if and when it eventually picks back up, going straight into the postseason, etc.

As Marks included in his piece, Ilyasova isn’t the only Bucks player impacted by this unprecedented break as the player options for fellow Bucks veterans Robin Lopez and Wesley Matthews will be impacted as well as they’re currently slotted for June 29. And the same goes for Antetokounmpo and his supermax extension offer as we explored earlier this week.

There are an endless amount of discussions being had around the league and the NBA office about how to keep hope alive and potentially resume this 2019-20 season when it’s deemed healthy enough to do so, some of which commissioner Adam Silver provided insight on in his interview with ESPN’s Rachel Nichols Wednesday night.

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With everything on the table and the league’s calendar being impacted not just this season, but next year as well, there are so many things that have to be adjusted over the coming weeks and months. And eventually, when things hopefully settle down, we’ll have an idea of when Ilyasova’s future in Milwaukee will have to be decided upon on what will very likely be a new date.

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