The Milwaukee Bucks have pushed their chips towards the middle of the table several days out of the trade deadline.
Their high-profile addition of P.J. Tucker has given the Bucks’ the midseason reinforcement they have been looking for and the fact that they’re hitting the stride after having won 10 of their last 11 games. Given the fact that the Bucks didn’t offload anything that meaningful in exchange for Tucker
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It’s through that lens that we’ll examine what their future draft assets look like after dishing off their 2021 and 2023 first round picks, along D.J. Augustin and D.J. Wilson.
Already strapped with future draft picks, it was simply surprising to see the Bucks navigate such a deal for a player in demand like Tucker and get him at the price the Bucks received him.
However, it certainly helped that the Rockets already had the Bucks’ 2022 first round pick, which came by way of the Cleveland Cavaliers in the James Harden blockbuster earlier this season. The Bucks had originally traded the pick as part of the deal that landed them George Hill in exchange for Matthew Dellavedova and John Henson midway through the 2018-19 campaign.
The Milwaukee Bucks will have little by way of draft picks for the foreseeable future.
It was already the case before the Tucker deal came into effect, but the Bucks’ diminished pile of draft assets somewhat took a hit in the trade.
While they offloaded their 2021 and 2023 first rounders, re-acquiring the aforementioned 2022 first round pick now serves as the only future first rounder they have full control over and they can’t fully outright trade that pick due to the Stepien Rule. Their first round picks in 2024 and 2026 are pick swaps with the New Orleans Pelicans and they relinquished their 2025 and 2027 first rounders as part of the Jrue Holiday trade.
While that’s their roundup of first rounders, their added a second round pick in this year’s draft through the trade, which is currently slotted to be the 32nd overall pick as of this writing. Of course, the Bucks forfeited their 2022 second round pick as part of the tampering investigation out of the Bogdan Bodagnovic fiasco.
From there, the Bucks own their 2023, 2024 and 2026 second round picks currently. And they have an additional 2025 second round pick that comes by way of the Indiana Pacers via the Malcolm Brogdon sign-and-trade nearly two summers ago.
While they don’t have a ton of draft assets to work with whether for trade or making those selections, the structure of the Tucker deal did help generated a $4.8 million trade exception as ESPN’s Bobby Marks noted once the transaction was final.
Milwaukee will create a $4.88M TE as part of the deal.
— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) March 19, 2021
The Bucks are $1.2M and the Rockets $2.1M below the tax.
Eli Witus of the Rockets gets high marks with the creativity when it comes to the concept of redirecting the draft picks.
MIL also received $110K from PHX https://t.co/chvHdslck5
That gives the Bucks’ front office a nice fallback option to work with to acquire a potential contributor in the future and they will have the available to them for a full year before it expires.
With all of these assets, two open roster spots left and some time before the trade deadline, we’ll see whether some remain in the Bucks’ possession as they continue their mission to make it out of the East.