NBA Free Agency 2017: 5 offseason targets for the Milwaukee Bucks
The Bucks made the playoffs last season on the heels of a huge improvement from the Greek Freak, pushing the Raptors to six games. What players can they pursue in free agency to continue their development and build around Giannis?
The biggest story of the 2016-2017 season for the Bucks was Giannis Antetokounmpo’s (my compatriot!) leap toward superstardom. The Greek Freak doesn’t turn 23 until December and he’s already a top ten or fifteen player in the league. If the Bucks can surround him with the right mix of talent, they should be championship contenders a few years down the road.
Right now however, they are capped out heading into the summer as Jabari Parker rehabs yet another catastrophic knee injury. The Bucks don’t have that many options to improve the roster as they enter free agency. Greg Monore has picked up his player option, so creating a substantial amount of cap space would be difficult. Milwaukee would have to unload two of its more onerous contracts to get substantial cap room, but it would also have to give up future assets to convince teams to absorb those salaries. With the contracts that the Bucks currently have on their books, the luxury tax could become a serious issue for them within the next two or three seasons.
Another important thing to keep in mind is that the Bucks just promoted Jon Horst as their new General Manager after John Hammond’s departure. We have no sense of how he intends to move forward with this roster and whether or not he will push for substantial changes. In any case, opening cap room would be hard for Milwaukee and convincing a big name free agent to join the team would probably be just as difficult.
The best move for the Bucks this summer is probably to operate as an over the cap team. They will have the full Mid-Level exception, Bi-annual Exception and a $5 million trade exception at their disposal this summer (per Spotrac). Milwaukee should use these exceptions to fill some needs on the wing and in the backcourt. The Bucks are also going to have to hope that some of the young players in their rotation continue to improve. Of course, another one of the team’s objectives throughout this season will be to dodge the luxury tax.
The Bucks are probably in for an unexciting summer, but they can still add to the roster. They should consider signing the following five players in free agency radar.