While Milwaukee treated its young players like trade chips, Oklahoma City was turning a second-round pick into a Western Conference Finals headliner. And now, Ajay Mitchell is doing things in this postseason that most veterans dream about.
Through 11 playoff appearances, Mitchell averaged 15.1 points, 4.3 assists, 3.7 rebounds, and 1.5 steals per game. In the second round against the Lakers, filling in for an injured Jalen Williams, he averaged 22.5 points, 6.0 assists, 3.0 rebounds, and 1.8 steals across four games.
He's 23, in his second NBA season, and he's carrying a defending champion through the playoffs without flinching.
It's time for the Milwaukee Bucks to finally trust their youth
That's what trust in youth actually looks like -- not handing minutes out as charity, but as a means to pave the way for young players to become who they're capable of becoming. Sam Presti has operated this way for years, and the dividends keep compounding. Mitchell is just the latest entry in a long line of OKC prospects who were given a real shot.
Milwaukee took the opposite approach. For years, younger Bucks like Andre Jackson Jr., AJ Johnson, Tyler Smith, MarJon Beauchamp were mere afterthoughts in the rotation in favor of veteran names despite declining production and questionable value.
Even as far back as guys like Donte DiVincenzo, Sam Merrill, and Sandro Mamukelashvili, the Bucks front office wasn't shy about giving up on the potential of youth in exchange for veterans. When the situation called for the talents of guys like Jackson, the Bucks looked elsewhere for answers.
Of course, with Giannis in his prime and a title window presumably open, you play your safest veterans. But it meant that when the window started closing, Milwaukee had no young players ready to step into anything meaningful.
Beauchamp played just 2.5 years for the Bucks and has since been moved to three different teams, averaging 4.4 points per game for his career. Johnson was packaged in the Khris Middleton trade to Washington. The Bucks drafted them, gave them minimal runway, and moved on.
You see this even in Milwaukee's drafting, which has oscillated between drafting for upside and taking win-now players. Among the notable prospects Milwaukee passed on in recent drafts: Peyton Watson, Andrew Nembhard, Jaylin Williams, Max Christie, Kobe Brown, GG Jackson, and Toumani Camara. Some of those names are now meaningful rotation players for contending teams. Several are exactly the kind of cheap, controllable talent Milwaukee could have used right now.
OKC's model (if you can even call it that) is precisely what the Bucks needed throughout this era, and it wasn't even complicated. Draft well. Develop with patience. Play your young players in real situations before you need them to be ready.
The Bucks can right the ship by developing their young Bucks
The Thunder built a championship roster by finding diamonds in the rough, and they kept doing it even after winning the title. Mitchell wasn't an accident. He was a product of a top-to-bottom approach as an organization that genuinely believed in the process and the potential of their young pieces.
But thankfully, even with all the chaos of an up-and-down campaign, the Bucks are leaving this season with something. Despite failing to develop their draft picks, the team struck gold multiple times with rare gems among undrafted players. Now the team has the likes of Ryan Rollins, AJ Green, Ousmane Dieng, Pete Nance, and Cormac Ryan to look forward to next year. No matter how things go with Giannis, they have the makings of a young core that can grow with the franchise.
Milwaukee is now searching for a franchise cornerstone in the trade market, hoping one blockbuster deal delivers what years of patient development should have. Maybe it works. But watching Mitchell take over a playoff series in his second year, in the Western Conference Finals, for a team that already won a championship, it's hard not to wonder: what if the Bucks had just trusted their own guys from the very beginning?
The Thunder didn't build their dynasty by accident. They built it by doing something Milwaukee never fully committed to: betting on young players before they had to.
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