Milwaukee Bucks: What hurdles remain in filling final roster spot?

As the Milwaukee Bucks get set to start a three-game road trip Sunday evening, intrigue still surrounds their final open roster spot.

The trade deadline and buyout deadline has passed and the Bucks netted both P.J. Tucker and Jeff Teague over the last few weeks to shore up their biggest needs that weren’t yet filled on their roster. Now with one more opening present, the Bucks can continue strengthening their roster as they’re nearly a month away from wrapping up their 2020-21 regular season.

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The Bucks were reportedly deemed the frontrunners to pick up Austin Rivers after getting bought out by the Oklahoma City Thunder, but that hasn’t come to pass nor has Rivers found a new home yet. There was also the surprising rumor of the Bucks reportedly working out Brandon Knight that could portend other journeyman veterans being on the Bucks’ radar as well.

Despite these links, the Bucks have yet to fill their final roster spot and while Bucks fans have been eager to see them fill that spot, the bigger question worth exploring is why the Bucks haven’t yet added another player to fill out their 15-man roster.

The Milwaukee Bucks are treading the luxury tax line carefully this season

The answer to that question is all Bucks fans’ favorite subject, that being the luxury tax. After Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry reportedly pledged the Bucks would go into the luxury tax in the offseason, the Bucks were heading towards going into the tax for the first time since 2003. They assuredly will after Jrue Holiday signed his four-year extension last week.

But after pulling the trigger on acquiring Tucker from the Houston Rockets, sending Torrey Craig off to the Phoenix Suns and adding Teague, the Bucks are $737,439 below the tax, per ESPN’s salary cap guru Bobby Marks.

While the Bucks have the room to add another player, doing so would assuredly vault them over the tax line due to the incentives included in Holiday’s current contract. As he recently wrote about Holiday’s new extension, The Athletic’s John Hollinger (sunscription required) detailed that Holiday playing at least 58 games and 1,822 minutes this season would net the veteran guard $765,000 in added bonuses, thus going over the tax line.

After sitting the Bucks’ loss to the Charlotte Hornets Friday night, Holiday is set to appear in 60 games and play 1,907 minutes if he were to play his season average minutes (31.8) the rest of the way. That would eclipse both bonuses obviously.

Given the fact that the Bucks’ schedule is pretty unforgiving as they’re set to play their final 20 games of the regular season in a span of 36 days, one would think further rest games is in Holiday’s future to preserve his health and the Bucks’ cap situation. That’s especially so with four back-to-backs remaining over the next month.

As unseemly and pretty cold as this outlook is, the Bucks will have until the end of the regular season to sign a free agent that will be playoff-eligible if they were waived by 11:59 ET Friday night as Marc Stein of the New York Times noted yesterday.

In theory, Rivers would apply if he were to remain in the open market for that long and if the Bucks made sure that Holiday wasn’t going to achieve his likely incentives by resting him three more times this year.

While the Bucks will likely continue their cap gymnastics, it’s safe to assume they will hold off on filling their final roster spot for the time being. Of course, we’ll stay tuned to any free agents they are linked to if and when things change on that front.