There will be plenty of content from the Brew Hoop team memorialising Giannis and his impact in Milwaukee over the coming weeks, but for this article, I wanted to delve deep into the minutiae of how the Bucks move forward from here, now that the draft is over. Are the obstacles in front of them really as debilitating as outsiders make them seem? Clearly, the goal will not be to win a title in the immediate future, so what should they aim to do? When might fans truly get to see the “light at the end of the tunnel”? My take on it all:
Rebuilding without your own picks
With Giannis now shipped off to South Beach, the Bucks have entered a phase they haven’t been in for a very long time: the rebuilding phase. The model rebuilding teams have generally followed in the past is to tank for 2-4 years, acquire picks at the top of the draft, and hope they can emerge with the requisite talent to compete once again. Now, the NBA has (foolishly, in my view) all but outlawed tanking anyway, but even if they hadn’t, that wouldn’t have been an option for Milwaukee because they don’t own their picks outright until 2031.
So, how do the Bucks rebuild without going to the draft (or having access to the top of it)? Well, the way I’ve been looking at it is they did go to the draft… they just packed what would have been a multiyear process into one offseason. Think about it: as opposed to building their young core over the course of 2-4 years, the Giannis trade gave them a unique opportunity to, in a way, do it in one fell swoop.
They acquired young, promising pieces in Kel’el Ware, Jaime Jaquez Jr., and Kasparas Jakucionis (we’ll see what they do with Tyler Herro)… to pair with their multiple 2026 lottery picks in Brayden Burries and Nate Ament… to pair with their own proven/promising/interesting young guys in Ryan Rollins, AJ Green, Jericho Sims, Ousmane Dieng, and Bogoljub Markovic. The average age of this entire group is 22.81 years old. If you remove Herro (as they appear to prefer trading him before the season), along with Sims and Green (who might be “on the outer” to varying degrees), the average age reduces to just 21.50.
Of course, we wait to see what happens with some of the remaining veterans on this team—such as Myles Turner and Kyle Kuzma—but it’s very plausible that they, too, could be flipped for draft picks and/or young players. I mean, credit where credit’s due: I really think Jon Horst and his team cooked here. That doesn’t mean it will all be sunshine and rainbows in the years to come, but from a process standpoint, you really can’t fault their approach to this “flash rebuild.”
How the Bucks can still generate future draft picks
I want to add that although the Bucks will not have their own picks during this time, they can acquire other teams’ picks by 1. trading their veterans, as I just mentioned, and 2. taking on bad contracts in exchange for draft capital. There is some well-founded debate about the extent to which the front office should be trying to win and make this group as formidable as possible, since they don’t own their picks (within reason; I am absolutely not implying that they should make another all-in trade).
More specifically, I am referring to the debate over the extent to which they should absorb other teams’ bad contracts for picks, even though doing so might make them marginally worse in the short term, possibly improving their pick for the team that owns it. For what it’s worth, I would dismiss this notion out of hand. Milwaukee owns a grand total of two picks over the next four years; Horst should be uber-opportunistic in acquiring as much draft capital as possible, and live with the results.
Additionally, as I outline in the next segment, the next two drafts (at least) are projected to be… below average, shall we say. The players that the Bucks give up via their own picks may not even be that good. Moreover, Milwaukee will generate a $25.5m trade exception in the Giannis trade. For those who don’t know, a trade exception allows Team A to absorb a contract (or contracts) without having to send out matching salary to Team B, which helps Team B save money and makes Team A an attractive trade partner. The Bucks should try to put that trade exception to good use.
Of course, another element of the push-and-pull between winning now and fortifying the future is which players the org wants to prioritise. I don’t feel like it’s a controversial take to say that I don’t want Nate Ament’s minutes being taken all season by Taurean Prince, for example. Sure, make the kids earn it, but they are the future—play ’em.
The hardest part of any rebuild
Ultimately, I think the most pressing task the Bucks will have over the coming years is simple: finding The Guy. I do believe this roster now has the bones to develop into a deep, entertaining squad that is a fringe playoff chance down the road, but I’m not sure their ceiling is much higher than that. It’s all well and good to have a team of solid players, but history tells us that you need stars to compete. Whether said star (or stars) is/are already on the roster is another question, but that’s the next step for this franchise.
It should be mentioned that nobody thought Shai Gilgeous-Alexander would become this when he was included in that blockbuster transaction with LA. Nobody thought Jalen Brunson would become the player he became when he arrived in New York. These success stories happen—the Bucks will need to find their own.
Will not having picks actually hurt Milwaukee?
People often denigrate Milwaukee’s outlook by referring to the org having traded their picks away, but if you look under the hood, the situation is not as dire as you might think. There are two reasons for this: 1. not having access to a draft only hurts if that draft itself is strong, and 2. the team that owns the Bucks’ picks and swaps plays a factor as well.
Analysing the upcoming draft classes
Let’s start with the 2027 draft. Look, if you had to choose a draft to not have a pick, this would undoubtedly be it. Jonathan Givony, founder of the well-known Draft Express, reported in July last year that league executives “are already ringing alarm bells in their front offices for the 2027 NBA draft, which appears to be an especially weak group of rising high school seniors and international players.”
The 2028 draft—when the Bucks will have the lesser swap rights between like three different teams (it’s really confusing)—appears to be slightly stronger than 2027, but it still looks to be much closer to the ‘27 draft than this year’s. So, let’s just stop here for a second: we’ve now accounted for two of the next four drafts in which not having your pick (or unfettered rights to it) might not actually be that significant.
Moving to the 2029 draft, it becomes increasingly hard to project right at this moment because you’re betting on kids three years away, but I have heard that this draft is a step above the previous two—the Bucks do not own any pick for this one, so that’s certainly not ideal. Maybe they can target getting that pick back down the line.
As for the 2030 crop, well, ESPN doesn’t even have rankings for this class yet, so your guess is as good as mine regarding its strength. But as far as the Bucks are concerned, they will receive the second-most favourable pick between their own, the Blazers’, and the Heat’s; this was another shrewd move by Horst, extracting a 2030 pick swap in the Giannis trade.
From there, the Bucks finally own unfettered access to their own firsts moving forward. Additionally, they now own Miami’s firsts in 2031 and 2033, when Giannis will be 36 and 38 years old. We shall see how that plays out down the line…
Why Portland owning Milwaukee’s picks matters
I’ve already written about why the changes to draft odds—in place until 2029, when they will be reevaluated—benefit the Bucks, but there’s another underdiscussed factor regarding Portland owning Milwaukee’s draft from 2028-2030: the strength of the Blazers themselves during this period.
Think about this: the only reason the Bucks were able to quasi-tank their way to the 10th pick this year is because the team that could have swapped picks with them (the Pelicans) was worse than them. Thus, Milwaukee was able to sink lower and lower while still being likely to retain their own pick (or, at the very least, a swap would have yielded a good pick for Milwaukee anyway).
Now, I’m not necessarily saying that the Bucks will be better than Portland during this period, but you tell me: what are the odds that Portland will be a playoff team in the west from 2028-2030? Most of those West playoff teams aren’t going anywhere, and teams like the Utah Jazz will be trying to win and look quite promising.
Look, I think there’s a good chance Portland is right there with Milwaukee in the lottery during those years; therefore, even if the Blazers swap picks with the Bucks and move up, Milwaukee would still get a lottery pick as a consolation prize. And with the flattened odds, who knows if the Blazers will even end up swapping picks in the first place, even if the Bucks have a worse record. Touch wood, but I doubt this will be like the infamous Thunder-Clippers deal, where LA often got their pick swapped to the end of the first round because OKC was so good.
All in all, watching the Bucks will now be a different type of experience than the one we are all used to, but honestly, I’m excited for it. Sure, watching your team try to compete year after year brings a certain exhilaration that probably won’t be replicated in the Cream City for a while. At the same time, that era, to me, had reached a dead end and was only going to get more toxic (and don’t take my word for it, take the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s: How the Giannis Antetokounmpo era in Milwaukee came to a bitter end). Frankly, watching a group of hungry young fellas come together to build something from the ground up sounds like a nice switch-up.
Let’s do this.
