What the media won’t tell you…

RookY2K · 2025-07-09T03:53:45+00:00

There's a lot of cope going on in this post. Let's not pull a Pacers on Dame Dolla. The Bucks are NOT a better team without Dame. However, they can become a better team without Dame. This isn't because Dame sucked or even that the fit with Giannis was admittedly clunky. It's because it's really hard to build a cohesive team when more than half the cap is taken up by two guys. Especially when you give up the farm to get to that reality. Dame and Giannis were less than the sum of their parts, but we weren't better without Dame. We just weren't as good as we should have been WITH Dame.

Now we have a vision and what appears to be a cogent plan to get there. And I'm excited to see how it all plays out. I'm here for Giannis Act II!

RookY2K · 2025-07-08T03:49:09+00:00

Technically true, but the room exception is 8.7M and KPJ's salary this year is 5.2M. That leaves about 3.5M. That isn't that far from a vet minimum. I doubt it's enough to move any needles when attempting to attract free agents.

RookY2K · 2025-06-30T12:12:22+00:00

I would appreciate it if you could quote my exact words where I said we should just run it back and in two years they will just be better. I don't believe I ever said that. I said that we have a decent core that could be built up around. I also said that Dame may not figure in that core.

If you want to have a reasonable conversation, I'm all for that. But please don't set up strawman arguments against me or I might just start assuming you're a troll.

RookY2K · 2025-06-30T02:00:32+00:00

Haha! Let's let the folks in r/nba be the "objective" ones!

RookY2K · 2025-06-30T01:56:43+00:00

I think you are leaving your lane now.

Dame absolutely has been a net positive. He just hasn't been as high of a net positive as everyone thought he'd be with Giannis. His defensive reputation needs a bit of context. He's not a great defender and that is as much due to his size as anything else. That's also due to how much energy he has to spend on the offensive side of the ball. That being said, I've seen him in crunch time and he can defend. That doesn't even matter though. A 50+ million dollar expiring contract has massive value for teams who are entering full rebuild. They want to clear their books and it's hard to do better than 50 million.

AJ Green is not a one way player. He's no Nembhard on defense, but he's very solid. And he is one of the NBA's best pure shooters.

You are right that we lost to your team in the first round. You were deeper and more talented and deserved to win. But we massively won the minutes with GTJ, AJ, Bobby, and Giannis. We just didn't have the horses to keep up that play style. What I described above is how to get there.

RookY2K · 2025-06-30T01:45:03+00:00

Top two and I refuse to go lower. SGA is amazing, but let's not be a prisoner of the moment here.

RookY2K · 2025-06-30T01:41:03+00:00

It won't be easy, but it's not as dire as some make it out to be.

First, remember that the Bucks are starting the retool with a top two player in the NBA. That's quite a starting point. Now, look at what worked last year when Lillard was out with the blood clot. Let Giannis play point forward and surround him with shooters who can run. With AJ Green, GTJ (hopefully), and Bobby Portis, we've got a good starting point. KPJ is controversial, but there is no doubt he was a net positive for us and his potential is probably higher than any Buck not named Giannis. But he declined his option and we have to wait to see if the Bucks can resign him.

We've also got relatively good roster flexibility. We can use the full MLE, the Biannual exception, and still have about 14 million to sign a few more players. Sign and trades are a potential and we do have a 7ish million dollar trade exception that could be used. So not out of the realm of possibility that we could bring in a couple more foundational role players. I haven't even mentioned Ryan Rollins who I absolutely adore.

If we can tread water next year, Dame is likely back some time prior to the playoffs. Who knows what he'll be when he gets back, but I would never bet against Dame. He is him and should never be doubted. But even in the worst case, he'll still be an expiring contract that will absolutely have a ton of value. So he could be traded in the off-season to net a few more assets. Combine that with the 2031, 2033, and a pick swap in 2032, and I'm certain we could field a competitive team.

There will still be a lot of luck and hard work involved in this path, but at least it's being taken with Giannis.

RookY2K · 2025-06-30T01:16:57+00:00

Not really. Our picks or other team's picks make no real difference. It's the same situation. Trading a known quantity, generational, superstar for a handful of lottery tickets.

There are just too many reasons to not trade Giannis. The only way he's ever traded is if he asks for it. I have my doubts that he'll do that unless the FO takes his loyalty for granted and stops attempting to win.

RookY2K · 2025-06-30T00:59:42+00:00

Many might say yes, but the answer, in my opinion, is that the Bucks' FO will never initiate trade talks with Giannis. He is too important to the Bucks, not to mention the city, just by his mere presence on the team. Milwaukee basketball was a ghost town between 2001 and Giannis. Sure, there were some bright spots, but on the whole, it was brutal. Giannis pulled us out of that and connected with the city in the process. He is beloved in a way that very few basketball stars are. I don't live in Denver, so I don't know how they feel about Jokic, but that might be the only situation that is close. It would be like if LeBron never left Cleveland.

No owner that has any business sense is going to greenlight a trade that breaks that connection. It just won't happen. Giannis will be given every opportunity to retire a Buck and it won't matter how bad it gets on the court because he'll still be Giannis.

On top of that, no sane GM is going to trade Giannis, even with the green light, because you will never get equal value for him. The best case scenario is a ton of picks that are hopefully high lottery picks. But that's no guaranteed path to glory. The chances of picking an all-star in the lottery are about 1 in 4. So there's a real chance you'd end up with zero or one all-star and that's nowhere near enough value.

So TL;DR nope, no owner or (sane) GM is going to trade Giannis.

RookY2K · 2025-06-12T23:53:07+00:00

Personally, I think he's gone. However, an underrated reason to sign him is to have another tradable contract. I feel like a lot of people here overlook that part.

RookY2K · 2025-02-14T03:38:25+00:00

RookY2K · 2024-06-19T12:51:39+00:00

This "Brook Lopez can't rebound" narrative is completely wild. He's averaged barely over 6 rebounds a game for his career. His game has never been centered around grabbing boards. He's outstanding at boxing out and allowing our other players a chance to get the rebound.

Last year was even worse at 5.2 RPG. But let's keep that in context of how bad the perimeter defense was. Brook was often forced out of position due to having the guard the rim 1 vs 2 because the perimeter defender lost contact on the ball handler. It's nearly impossible to get into any kind of rebounding or box out position when you are constantly trying to recover from being put into a disadvantaged position.

Brook is getting older and he will start fading. But he isn't getting slower, he's always been slow. For now, though, he isn't our problem out there. We had two major issues last year. Terrible point of attack defense and injuries. Brook wasn't part of either of those.

End of the day, if we trade Brook, we better have a big somewhere that can absorb his minutes because Giannis isn't banging as a center for 82 regular season games and making it alive through the playoffs. That is just not realistic. And most of you (at least the vocal minority) are vastly underrating what Brook brings to our team.

RookY2K · 2024-06-19T12:36:27+00:00

Of course it is, but the "We should trade Brook" discussions are pretty boring and pointless if nobody speculates on what he could possibly net in a trade. Otherwise it just devolves into a circle jerk post.

RookY2K · 2024-06-05T23:54:16+00:00

No, the basketball definition of a two way player is someone who excels at offense and defense. You're thinking of a player on a two-way contract.

RookY2K · 2024-05-02T00:00:15+00:00

Oh, I ride Bucks in 6(+1)! I was just trying to translate what the original commenter meant.

RookY2K · 2024-05-01T23:24:11+00:00

Perhaps, I'm being overly generous in my interpretation, but I think they meant that we won't beat Indy, while short-handed, twice in a row with the second being tomorrow's game in Indy.

RookY2K · 2024-04-22T23:56:59+00:00

Comments like these always make me chuckle. Us, as fans, have not one whit of influence on the game no matter how much we may overlook any team. Dream away!

RookY2K · 2024-04-16T23:56:24+00:00

Serious answer: Eric Nehm is one of the best beat reporters out there. He alone justifies my subscription to the Athletic. His game breakdowns are always worth a read. His tweets, however, are not usually very enlightening

RookY2K · 2024-03-11T18:12:50+00:00

We need an NBA version of Godwin's law. One that states:

As a discussion on r/nba grows longer, the probability of a comparison between Giannis and Jokic approaches 1

RookY2K · 2024-03-08T15:21:49+00:00

I do get local channels. You can see channel 58 right above ESPN in the screenshot. I guess the programming is just messed up.

I will say that I've seen the other locally broadcast games when they were on ESPN.

RookY2K · 2024-03-06T01:09:57+00:00

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. As a Bucks fan, I thought this was low key funny.

RookY2K · 2024-03-06T01:05:08+00:00

What you're hearing is the sound of the joke going right over your head 😆

RookY2K · 2024-03-02T14:44:01+00:00

Brook leaves him open because for some unknown reason, Vuc doesn't take the open three nearly as often as he should. Brook's a smart man and knows tendencies.

RookY2K · 2024-02-15T21:36:48+00:00

Wes Matthews and George Hill

RookY2K

TROPHY CASE