Ranking the Milwaukee Bucks 3 biggest needs in 2022 NBA Draft

For a team that’s a championship contender and a season removed from winning the title, the Milwaukee Bucks have a surprising amount of needs or positions they need to address in the upcoming NBA Draft.

They aren’t the same needs that other teams have, though. The Bucks have their three star-to-superstar players that lead the team and have a few really good role players that can fill in around the edges. That doesn’t mean the former defending champs can’t target a few positions in the draft to help supplement their championship-caliber roster.

I’m always a big “draft the best player over need” guy and if there’s a no-brainer pick on the board that doesn’t necessarily fit one of these three needs, they should absolutely do that because talent wins in the NBA, and adding more talent is never a bad thing. Anyway, here are the Bucks’ three biggest needs with about a month or so to go before the big day.

#3: The Milwaukee Bucks need to add big man depth in the 2022 NBA Draft

This is the lowest on the priority list but it could be number two or number one depending on what’s available and how things shake out with the offseason.

We saw once Brook Lopez went down early in the season that the Bucks desperately needed more bigs to play behind Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis.

The DeMarcus Cousins experiment was fun but short-lived and he wasn’t the best fit with what head coach Mike Budenholzer wants to do defensively. The lack of big man depth and the uncertainty surrounding Lopez’s back injury led the Bucks to make a trade for Serge Ibaka which didn’t look great at the time and looked worse in hindsight.

Once Lopez came back and seemed to be his normal self again, the fretting over big man depth subsided a little bit but this was a problem that I noted before last season even began. They need depth at this position and especially so if Portis leaves in free agency.

The ideal fit would be Mark Williams from Duke but he’s expected to be picked well before the Bucks’ selection comes up at number 24. Other names to keep an eye on would be Walker Kessler from Auburn, Christian Koloko from Arizona, and Ismael Kamagate from France.

If those names don’t sound too appealing, I don’t blame you. I’m not huge on the significant man depth in this class and would rather the Bucks take a swing on another position rather than reach for Koloko. But hey, if Williams somehow falls, I hope general manager Jon Horst sprints that pick in.