Milwaukee Bucks: Gauging the stock of their impending free agents
Gauging the stock of the Milwaukee Bucks’ impending free agents – Ersan Ilyasova
As of this writing, including Ersan Ilyasova among the Bucks’ crop of impending free agents is premature.
After all, the Turkish veteran is still heading into the final year of his three-year, $21 million deal that he signed two summers ago that brought him back to Milwaukee for a third stint in his well-traveled career. The big caveat, though, in Ilyasova’s contract structure is that the $7 million salary he’s owed next year is completely non-guaranteed.
As with everything during this strange NBA season, the date for when Ilyasova’s salary becomes fully guaranteed has been pushed back for the umpteenth time. What the Bucks decide to do with Ilyasova could signal their offseason dealings.
Guaranteeing $7 million to a 32-year-old veteran forward who was essentially supplanted in the Bucks’ rotation by Marvin Williams by the end of the Bucks’ run is far from great business. But as the Bucks aspire to retool their roster and reportedly bolster their playmaking, Ilyasova’s salary is essential to putting together any trade package for the upgrade that the Bucks seek.
That is undeniably a tricky needle to thread for Milwaukee’s front office helmed by general manager Jon Horst.
Even as he showed more during the start of the Bucks’ regular season, Ilyasova can serve a purpose behind Giannis Antetokounmpo with his mix of floor spacing, nose for the ball and positional defense, as uneasy on the eyes the latter can be for stretches. Ilyasova even finished with a career-high 58.9 true shooting percentage on 6.6 points per game and 36.5 percent shooting from deep this year.
But maintaining that over a season has been a struggle for Ilyasova, historically and he’s certainly not any younger nor is he getting any more athletic.
All roads have certainly led Ilyasova back to Milwaukee time and again throughout his NBA career. Now we’ll just have to see if this offseason proves to be the end of the road for his third stint in Milwaukee.