Without Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton, whose names have become synonymous with the 414, shooting guard AJ Green is officially the longest-tenured player on the Milwaukee Bucks.
Let that sink in. The undrafted sharpshooter out of Northern Iowa clawed his way onto the roster on a two-way deal in 2022 and is suddenly a veteran in the room. According to Hoops Rumors' tracker, he's also the 24th longest-tenured NBA player to stay with his team.
AJ Green is officially the longest-tenured Milwaukee Buck on the roster
Times have changed in Milwaukee, and the ongoing rebuild promises that things will only continue to change. The last remaining Milwaukee Bucks from the championship team have left town, and pretty soon, the last remaining Buck from the Giannis Antetokounmpo era will pack his bags too. That's just the reality of the league.
We've all seen how quickly the Giannis Antetokounmpo era came and went. The locker room culture has flipped overnight. Gone are the established veteran hierarchies and quiet locker rooms dominated by future Hall of Famers. In their place is an energetic, chaotic wave of teenagers, lottery picks, and developmental projects trying to figure out how to dribble against NBA pressure.
It is a wild, surreal reminder of how completely the page has turned in the 414. While everyone else is obsessing over the incoming arrivals of Brayden Burries and Nate Ament, or evaluating the trade returns from Miami, the internal dynamic of the team belongs to guys like Green. He went from fighting for scraps at the end of the bench to the institutional memory of a franchise in record time.
At this point, it's no hot take to say he's one of the purest shooters we have in the association. Over 30 percent of all the team's 3-point makes came from Green this season, while a staggering 84 percent of all his field goal attempts were threes en route to a 41 percent 3-point percentage from the season and 47 percent from the corners.
The bulk of his assisted shots came from Ryan Rollins (48) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (44), showing how important he is in spacing the floor around the team's playmakers. (There's a reason the Miami Heat went and got someone like Klay Thompson to complement Antetokounmpo's inward gravity.)
He's no slouch on offense, either. According to Cleaning the Glass, opposing teams score -4.7 fewer points per 100 possessions whenever Green plays, putting him in the 87th percentile in defensive rating among guards. He finished the season with a net rating of +7.5 points per 100.
AJ Green's Bucks tenure is the ultimate blueprint for undrafted talent
This is all simply to say that though he's still on the team, it's worth taking the time to appreciate just how important, albeit underrated, AJ Green has been for the Milwaukee Bucks with the current logjam at the guard positions. It's unclear if he'll still be on the team come the trade deadline, as the logjam has left Jon Horst and company with an uncomfortable decision to make.
The Bucks are building toward tomorrow, handing the keys over to a new generation. But the guy who's been in town the longest is the unheralded sniper who somehow outlasted an entire era.
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