Draft day was a significant step forward for the Milwaukee Bucks. Heading into the 2023-24 season, the team had a number of issues they needed to address. Their first-round defeat against the Miami Heat laid bare a host of fundamental issues that had been lingering for quite a while in the Mike Budenholzer era.
Entering an offseason with this defeat in mind, the Bucks managed to end draft day snagging young, scrappy, and stout guys like Andre Jackson Jr., and Chris Livingston, in the second round of the draft, then managed to land San Jose State’s Omari Moore and Gonzaga’s Drew Timme via a two-way deal and an Exhibit 10 contract, respectively.
Here are three reasons to love their draft day haul.
No. 1 – Milwaukee’s youth movement is officially underway
The Milwaukee Bucks entered the 2022-23 season with the oldest roster in the NBA, with an average age of 29.9 years old up and down their top-heavy roster. This lack of youth was a major factor in their early exit from the playoffs, as they were no match for the Miami Heat’s athleticism and hustle.
The fact of the matter is that the NBA is a young man’s league, and teams that are able to surround their stars with talented young players are more likely to be successful. A team with a good mix of young and veteran players is more likely to be sustainable over the long term. And for the past few years, the Bucks just didn’t have many future pieces to be excited about besides Jordan Nwora and Sandro Mamukelashvili, both of whom are no longer with the team.
While you can say what you want about how their age affected their on-court play, the Bucks roster’s age also affects them in the long term. Their top-heavy core is not getting any younger, with Giannis Antetokounmpo at 28, Khris Middleton at 31, and Jrue Holiday at 33. The point is, the Bucks absolutely needed to find ways to replace the production of their aging stars with smart moves this offseason.
Compounding matters further is that the Bucks have not had much success developing their young players in recent years. In the past five years, only one Bucks player drafted outside of the lottery has become a regular starter in the NBA, and that’s Donte DiVincenzo.
This most recent draft haul managed to solve all of these problems in one night. Along with MarJon Beauchamp, the Bucks now have five guys aged 22 and younger who are all on rookie scale or team-friendly contracts.
Perhaps more than ever before, the Bucks have new blood to work on developing around the talents of Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The Milwaukee Bucks got more athletic
Evidence of their age is in the stats. In regular season transition plays, the Bucks were 11th in the league in frequency (transition made up 17.6 percent of their offense), yet they scored just 1.12 points per possession on those opportunities, which was good for the 31st percentile in the league. They also ran a 14th-ranked 17.9 miles per game in the regular season, which is very telling for a team that had one of the best transition scorers in the game. (Both stats come from NBA.com/stats.)
With two picks in the second round, Milwaukee managed to snag not one but two prospects who can jump out of the gym while locking down anyone you put them on.
Jackson and Livingston, in particular, are both young, skilled wings with a lot of potential. They have the physical tools to defend multiple positions, and they’ve shown high upside as potential play-connectors with their passing. Both of them need to improve their shooting and overall offensive game, but the potential to be versatile players in the NBA is more than evident.
This is all to say that the acquisitions from draft day address key problems in this team that this writer has long been calling attention to.
It’s no secret that the Milwaukee Bucks had banked on a slew of forwards to replace defensive hound, P.J. Tucker. From Semi Ojeleye to Wesley Matthews to Jae Crowder, they just weren’t successful at recapturing that lightning in a bottle that Tucker was on the defensive end. Now they have three options to choose from in Livingston, Jackson, and Beauchamp.
They took on quite a bit of positional versatility, too, with this latest haul. Pieces like Drew Timme and Omari Moore also add playmaking and big man offense into the mix in the event that the Bucks lose core pieces like Brook Lopez and Jevon Carter in free agency.
It signifies a change in direction
After five years of “playing random” on one end and playing drop coverage on the other, it’s just a fact that something was bound to change for the Milwaukee Bucks.
Throughout draft day, Adrian Griffin’s hand in the front office decisions was made much more evident. It’s not a stretch to say these are probably not draft picks the Milwaukee Bucks would have made during the Mike Budenholzer era. After all, not one of them is particularly proficient at shooting the long ball, and they likely would not have even been considered by a Budenholzer-led squad that loved to “let it fly.”
Even in the early days of Adrian Griffin, it’s clear this ball club is not going to be the same team we’ve seen in recent years. He’s emphasized ball pressure, mid-game adjustments, and a dogged defensive identity in his introductory press conference, which would be a far cry from the schematically conservative defensive scheme we saw under Mike Budenholzer.
The new additions only confirm what we’ve already presumed to be true: this new era of Bucks basketball will see a palpable emphasis on hustle, perimeter athleticism, and matchup versatility going forward.
Not only is this identity taking shape, but it’s also clear that the front office is leaning into it and wholeheartedly committed to it with the decision to take in four guys of generally the same ilk.
There are parallels to Griffin’s former championship Raptors team in 2019, particularly in the overall direction of its roster construction. Think of the names you saw up and down that roster. Kawhi Leonard. OG Anunoby. Danny Green. Pascal Siakam. Serge Ibaka.
The one thing those names have in common is that they’re all gaudy, stout defenders. And now, the Bucks have their own iteration of that kind of roster. MarJon Beauchamp, Andre Jackson Jr., and Chris Livingston are all at least 6-foot-6. They’re all ripe for improvement under the tutelage of Griffin.
Whether or not this new roster can carry out that new system is another matter altogether, but it’s quite encouraging to see this team retooling and recalibrating after a largely disappointing era of Bucks basketball.
Stay tuned for more analysis on the Milwaukee Bucks rookies as they look to earn their stripes this coming Summer League.