Milwaukee threw out its #OwnTheFuture slogan when trading second-rounder
TORONTO — After he scored a career, playoff high Monday night for the Toronto Raptors, the Milwaukee Bucks wish they had a time machine.
Norman Powell went off for 25 points in leading the Raptors to a 118-93 Game 5 blowout in the first-round playoff series. The third-year point guard could have been doing that damage for Milwaukee, not against.
Back in June of 2015, the Bucks – coming off a 41-41 “breakout” season – traded the draft rights for Powell (a second-round pick) and this year’s first-round pick for, then, 28-year-old point guard Greivis Vasquez.
It was a baffling move then and it’s just frustrating now.
Back in the 2015 playoffs, the Bucks were coming off an incredibly exciting six-game, first-round exit against a Chicago Bulls team that looked like a favorite to get out of the East.
It set the bar high for the upcoming Milwaukee season, which seemed to have prompted the Bucks to cash in their #OwnTheFuture mantra for Vasquez, who was coming off a modest 9.5-point, 3.7-assist season.
In fact, everything about Vasquez’s career was modest. He averaged one season over 30 minutes (2012-13) and his per-36-minute stats the year before getting traded to Milwaukee was 14.0 points on 40-percent shooting, 5.5 assists and 2.2 turnovers – not quite first-round pick worthy, let alone throwing in another player/pick.
And, of course, Milwaukee was a total disappointment the one season with Vasquez, who played 23 games for Milwaukee before his career was essentially ended because of ankle surgery to remove a bone spur.
The funny thing – or sad – about the trade was that the pick Toronto acquired is actually from the L.A. Clippers. In 2014, the Bucks fleeced L.A., acquiring Jared Dudley – who rejuvenated his career in Milwaukee – and that future first-round pick for Carlos Delfino and Miroslav Raduljica – the center that was kind of a Milwaukee fan favorite when he saw the court but only as more of a joke than anything.
A year later, the Bucks essentially made the same boneheaded move (I mean, it’s not quite as bad as getting guys named Delfino and Raduljica but …) to get a point guard on its roster – apparently not trusting Michael-Carter Williams and Jerryd Bayless.
The pick won’t be a great one – 23rd overall – but the Bucks seem to strike gold more often than most in the draft, regardless of whether Powell would have worked out or not.
Instead, Milwaukee watches another one of its prospects blossom before its eyes, as its playoff hopes sink.
It also makes one wonder if Milwaukee will make the same mistakes it did when acquiring Vazquez. This season has been almost a mirror image of 2014-15, where the future looks so bright and the Bucks look a piece away from challenging for the East.
Of course, the series isn’t over but it sure looks like it. Yes, Milwaukee is only down 3-2, but Toronto essentially gives every team Game 1 (they’re 1-12 in the last 13 Game 1s), and it was all but a fact the Bucks would win that first one at home. It’s the NBA and the city is starving for success.
One more loss and eyes will be on next seasons multitude of question marks:
- Will Greg Monroe be re-signed (because he will surely opt-out of the final year of his deal)? He seems rather out of place on this team – and in today’s NBA – but nobody else even likes the paint on this team. Please do not re-sign him.
- Will Jabari Parker be able to come back from a second ACL tear in three years. He had surgery Feb. 14, 2017. Recovery is about 12 months. The NBA trade deadline will happen about a week later. He’s due a lot of money after next season if he comes back healthy.
- Will the Bucks make panic signings like last year (Matthew Dellavedova 4 years, $38.4 million; Mirza Teletovic, 3 years, $31.5 million)? That $20 million – combined salaries per year of those two – would sure be nice to use on somebody of consequence this offseason.
- Which brings up: Will Tony Snell re-sign with Milwaukee? He may have just played himself into Dellavedova money (I just like saying that, because it’s ridiculous: Dellavedova money) but he kind of fits on this team if he can nail 3-pointers. But I still am not OK with $10 million a year for fringe starters.
- What the hell do the Bucks actually need next season? Point guard or is that Malcolm Brogdon? Center? Because Thon Maker is at least two seasons away. A shooter? Yes always a shooter, but when they seem to do that – see Teletovic (poop emoji).
This isn’t a great year to have money, though this is the last year Milwaukee will have money to spend on a superstar free agent for some time. And, that’s ironic because when the 2018-19 season rolls around, the Bucks will roll into their new stadium all set to have no money to sign any superstar free agents that might be lured here to play alongside what might be the best player in the NBA by then in Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Regardless, here are the players that could be free agents this off-season and thoughts on their coming to Milwaukee:
- Chris Paul (31) and Blake Griffin (28) – but both seem like damaged goods in one way or another to lock up for four years at max money.
- Gordon Hayward (27) is a pipe dream.
- Danilo Gallinari (28) would be intriguing.
- Kyle Lowry (31) is too old to sign to a long-term deal, which is what he’ll want.
- Serge Ibaka (27) is intriguing but has been on the decline the last three years, which makes a case that he could actually be 35.
- Paul Millsap (32) might fit right in, but is ready for a decline at his age.
- Robert Covington (26) seems intriguing while you all say, “Who?” He could also be a bad-team, good-stats guy coming from the Sixers. But he is long, shoots 3s. Exactly what Milwaukee needs.
- Nerlens Noel would have been a player worth spending a first-round pick on at the trade deadline to get his restricted rights. He fits right into Milwaukee’s style, but they’ll have to pony up a lot of money to get him from Dallas, which has spent big in the past on free agents.
- Dwyane Wade (35) could chase one more paycheck. That seems ludicrous for Milwaukee, though it was a rumor last year, as well. Why do we care he’s from Chicago? We don’t. Go away Wade.