The Milwaukee Bucks used the 23rd pick in the 2024 NBA Draft on a teenager from California who spent a year playing in Australia instead of in college. Draft analysts at the time thought the Bucks reached in drafting AJ Johnson, and the reality has been even harsher than that.
Johnson is a flat-out bust and on his way out of the league. In the meantime, multiple players that the Bucks could have drafted instead are having breakout seasons, including a wing in Kyshawn George who would be the perfect fit in Milwaukee. The mistake is not just a painful one, but it could end up costing them Giannis Antetokounmpo, the best player in franchise history.
Let's start at the beginning of this one. The Bucks went into the 2024 NBA Draft with a talented, veteran team trying to stay relevant in the Eastern Conference. The year would not go as planned, in part because of a lack of young talent after multiple draft misses, and by the end of the year, Damian Lillard would have a torn achilles and the Bucks would have another first-round exit.
At the time, however, the Bucks understood the mission ahead of them: win at all costs. Do everything possible to build a winning team around Antetokounmpo to convince him he could stay in Milwaukee and continue competing for championships. That doesn't mean drafting the oldest prospect, but it does mean using the pick -- in trade or by drafting a player -- who could realistically help the team win games.
Drafting AJ Johnson was a disaster
AJ Johnson was the exact opposite of that mission. Johnson was a raw shooting guard who had no track record of shooting the basketball. How he would fit onto any NBA team was a real question mark. Most draft analysts had him as a late second-round pick, and yet the Bucks plucked him in the first round. It was a head-scratching move at the time, and it has only gotten worse.
Johnson has been terrible as an NBA player. He is a career 25.7 percent shooter from 3-point range and somehow is only hitting 42.2 percent of his 2-point shots as well. He has one of the lowest offensive box-score metrics in the entire NBA, a staggeringly low number. When he steps foot onto the court, he tanks the entire offense no matter who he is playing with. In short, two years in, he is not an NBA player, and he is far from being an NBA player.
The Bucks moved on from Johnson almost immediately, dumping him at the trade deadline on the Washington Wizards. The Wizards, a team trying to tank, have been too embarrassed to play Johnson this season he has been so bad. He almost certainly won't have his fourth-year option picked up by the Washington.
Kyshawn George has balled out
To make matters worse, the question of what the Bucks could have done instead looms large over the franchise. One pick after they chose Johnson, the aforementioned Wizards drafted Miami wing Kyshawn George. He was likewise thought to be something of a project wing, but he showed some real flashes at Miami and was a late riser up draft boards. When the Bucks took Johnson, draft analysts cringed. When the Wizards took George, draft analysts rushed to declare that they sneakily liked the pick and had been on George first.
George has turned out to be a slam dunk draft pick by the Wizards. This season, the 6'8" wing is averaging 15.6 points per game, shooting 38.8 percent from deep on a solid 5.8 attempts per game, and he is filling up the stat sheet with 5.9 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 2.0 combined STOCKs (steals plus blocks). What more could you want from a second-year wing?
If the Bucks had a player like George on the roster, suddenly the calculus would change. They would have a pair of young cornerstone players in George and Ryan Rollins to pair with Antetokounmpo. They would almost certainly have a better record this season, merely by going from nothing to a breakout two-way starter. George isn't perfect -- he turns the ball over and fouls quite a bit -- but he is a legitimate NBA starter and could be on a trajectory to more.
Does Giannis have more hope in the franchise's future if a budding star like Kyshawn George is on the roster? Do things get to this point, or are they a few wins closer to mattering and a few wins beyond Giannis's ask-out point? Woulda, should, coulda, but if the Bucks took George over Johnson in 2024 and took someone like Peyton Watson over MarJon Beauchamp in 2022, they could have a very different outlook right now.
Instead, they are left with regret over their own mistakes as Antetokounmpo heads toward the exit and the end of an era looms. Mistakes like drafting AJ Johnson have led them to this point, and there may be no coming back from it now.