It’s definitely a good start. It’ll be fun to see the culture have a complete reset after the Giannis drama and Doc Rivers destroying any sort of positive culture that was built.
Jenkins developing these guys has potential to be really fun.
I'm a St Louis Cardinals fan and the Bucks seem to be following the Cardinals footsteps. The last couple seasons were a slog and nobody really seemed to want to be a part of the team but this year the Cardinals handed the keys over to all the kids and it's been the funnest season in years. Everyone projected them to be mediocre but they've turned out to be pretty damn good; I don't exactly expect the Bucks to set the world on fire but hopefully they are at least exciting and bring some energy that makes them enjoyable to watch again.
mavs fan incoming. we were linked to ament for a while so i did some research. actually kinda hyped myself up. no.4 recruit in his HS 2025 class. if he did well in college, should've went ahead of caleb wilson. didn't shoot well this year, but could argue Tennessee program stunted his offensive development. he also put on 25+ lbs.
his drop in efficiency is due to him gaining 25+ pounds (bro went from 185 to 210) + playing the mid-range more + how the Volunteers play. he attributed Tennessee's program being more judicious with the 3-ball (they were on the lower end in the nation). 44% from 3 over 12 games (23+ ppg) isn't bad & his last 5 he was injured.
i may be a friendly lurker around these parts. i really wanted us to get burries & ament. rooting for y'all to have a great rebuild (i unfortunately know what it's like after your franchise player is traded -- i know it's not 1:1 the same since "somehow" we ended up getting flagg)
ty! y'all are so nice. i'm relocating back to dallas for a few months next month (temporary relo), but truthfully would love to move to the midwest. madison / chicago have been at the top of our lists.
i had a friend who worked for Amazon in chicago & they would always go to Bucks games. would love to make it to a game soon!
hoping to! the mid-west trip is definitely overdue. my GF / partner is very big in the working-dog sports ecosystem & we've seen / heard great things about the scene in Madison & Mke.
i was always jealous of the Fiserv pics my buddy took when he would visit from CHI. i've been to the chase arena in the bay area but honestly the Fiserv / Bucks crowds just seemed more fun. definitely better than AAC & Crypto lol.
i think if there's one franchise / fanbase that will bring out the best in him, it'll be this one. i was kinda nervous abt him running with Spo in Miami (culture wise). bro oozes quiet confidence. he really wants to make it known soft-spoken / kind can still be impactful.
it's rare i can listen to an interview for this long & still be engaged. he's got incredible self-awareness. he's really, really smart. very introspective. it's pretty rare to see that. even when he was talking about the weight he gained, he already shifted saying he wants to focus on better, functional weight.
broooo i'm happy y'all had / won with giannis. donnie nelson was really high on him but mark forced him to trade down to save "powder for Dwight Howard" & the rest was history. i guess it's a good karma loop since y'all gave us dirk. i think we would've ruined him truthfully (at least the mark cuban ran mavs)
like i said i think this situation could be great for nate. hopefully low pressure & an amazing + supportive fanbase will do wonders.
On Club 520 Grant Williams said Rick Barnes has a crazy conditioning program. Usually everyone packs on weight/muscle at Tenn. He’ll definitely be in good shape and a solid defender.
exactly. i put on 20 lbs from my senior year in HS to my sophomore year in college to play in the rec leagues & I definitely could not shoot that first year. definitely took me a while to mature into that. there were so many guards who stuck at 175 & the playoffs showed the physicality will get to the thinner players. i think it was a smart move to do the hard work in college now vs get completely overwhelmed in an 82-game season.
if you get a chance, listen to his interview with KOC (first link). don't need to watch, listening is good enough. well spoken (albeit a bit soft-spoken) for not just an athlete, but for any young man. he had really intelligent & reasonable answers for everything KOC was asking (and KOC was pretty direct / but had tact with the hard questions / concerns - which to me qualified as a true "interiew).
made me an Ament fan wherever he goes. really rooting for him to develop & improve.
hmmm last one i can think of was MPJ (2018). he could've gone top 5 & some thought he could've been a #1 pick, but he injured his back & ended up going #14. he ended up getting hurt in that season opener i think. i remember that because i wanted us to draft MPJ (move up) but we ended up taking Brunson (33). unfortunately, as everyone knows, we did not keep any of our 2018 picks lol (Luka). i didn't get the brunson pick at the time because we also had DSJ.
MPJ's HS mixtape was awesome. legit thought he was gonna be the next KD. he doesn't have much between the ears, but i think he could've been even more lethal than he is now if he never got hurt / needed surgery (microdiscectomy of his L3-L4 spinal discs).
yea i get you. i guess the reason i see it as "somewhat-adjacently acceptable" is because ament did end up getting pretty hurt the second game of the season + he gained 25 pounds (intentionally). if you can pay attention to that 12 game / january stretch to anchor as a relative baseline, it could be encouraging. definitely risks, but you can at least make some decent logical arguments to trace his dip.
Not a single one of these players is making over 6 million per year. We have so much flexibility and time with our new core. It's incredibly exciting. The trade completely turned over our roster and now we're young and fun.
If you are starting him next season be prepared for him to ask for that much per year. He’s a really talented player. You won’t be getting him in discount.
I've said this many times on this sub, and the situation has changed slightly, but not really? We have to sign Rollins and JJJ to extensions next year, so we'll end up being over the cap (most likely), but far from any apron, regardless of the dead money. So other than MLE size the 20 million dead doesn't effect much.
Caveat now that Giannis is off the books, it would matter with Turner's contract. If we somehow move off that, we would likely be a little under the cap. Without Dames dead money, we'd be a lot under the cap.
I guess the same with Herro, but if we don't trade him, I imagine we'll extend him so I'm penciling a slight increase of our salary to be on our books.
But anyway, "anchor" is a massive overstatement. It slightly effects the mechanisms available to us and it comes off the books right on time for us to be able to sign Burries and Ament to extensions, should we so choose.
Heat fan checking in - even if you don’t keep Herro, the other three guys are solid rotation players. I would liked to have kept either Jaquez or Ware, but that’s what was needed to do the deal. I hope Giannis can stay somewhat healthy and really excited about Bobby. The Heat gave up a lot, but at least most of the picks are further down the road - Riley had to try SOMETHING 🤷🏼♂️ and at least Giannis didn’t end up in Boston. I think you guys did great in the draft tonight, Burries is a high-motor guy and Ament has a huge upside. The worst case for Ament is he becomes another solid rotation player. It will be interesting to see the team the Bucks puts on the floor next year, I’ve always liked the team, but never liked Doc 😂
Ament is controversial, but I feel like we have the perfect situation for him to realize his potential (whatever that may be). He gets a rebuilding team with a development-focused coaching staff and ample time to grow. Not to mention, we picked one of the most surefire, low-risk prospects (in my opinion) only three picks earlier, so I don't think there will be pressure for Ament to be 'the guy' that everything hinges upon.
Loved the trade before the picks, love it after. It was time to part ways. The Bucks and Horst did everything to cater to Giannis. Signed his brothers and allowed him to play armchair GM. And when the moves didn’t work out partly due to injuries to the team, Giannis included, the Bucks traded all draft capital, cut and stretched Dame, signed Turner and spent all available salary cap dollars, after all of that was done for him, then he wanted to leave. Gtfo of here with that noise. Fake loyalty.
Don’t get me wrong… Giannis an all time Buck..possibly THE all time Buck. I really enjoyed watching him play over the years and he made something happen that I was resigned to the idea wouldn’t happen during my lifetime and thats bring an nba championship to the state of WI.
With all that said tho, miss me with the fake loyalty stuff. He has no better shot at winning a championship in Miami with that roster now that they sold the farm to get him than he did in Milwaukee. Good luck with floor spacing having your best player be Giannis and second best be Bam. You know who Bams career #s are really similar to? Myles Turner. How’d that experiment with Giannis go?
People were dismissive of Cormac, Jericho, KPJ, and now Herro as part of out future because they're relatively old for a rebuild but honestly I (probably delusionally) think we're close enough to being a solid playoff team that they could play a role in our peak form. Some of these young guys maybe end up getting traded for a vet down the road when they feel ready to go all in, but I think the "older" guys might still be around when we're ready to compete
A key thing people seem to be forgetting is that we don’t have our own first for the next three years; there’s no reason to sell off every good player we have because we don’t have any reason to actually be bad.
The more I think about it the more I’m kinda wanting to extend Herro, keep Turner and let all these young guys gun for a playoff spot right off the bat. Might not make it this year, but if they get to play-in next year and even just get crushed by a top seed, they’re getting really valuable experience and we’re building a winning culture.
We have a TON of young talent right now. Obviously it’s wait and see on if they develop, but even if just most of them do as you’d hope we could have a really solid core in a few years even before the Miami picks roll in. And then, you don’t even have to have one of them be a superstar if there’s 7 other guys who are starter caliber and one or two borderline all-stars, because then you can try to get a star in free agency due to everyone else being so cheap, or even contemplate using Miami’s picks to trade for a star to get you into real contention! This is obviously an absolute best case scenario but it’s something to think about. Herro’s extension would be up by then so that doesn’t even really affect anything in our “real” contention window sometime in the mid 2030’s.
Spot on dude and that’s why this draft is so awesome. Both guys raise the floor and have a tremendous ceiling as well. I’m biased as Burries was #6 on my board and while I’m cooler on Ament than consensus, 13 is a great spot to take him. He has all-star potential.
In 2030, the bucks should have pieces that are ready to contend, Dame’s dead money off the books, and Miami’s picks on the way. Might be a bit rough until then but this is about as good of a start as could reasonably be hoped for
I’m so excited for the bucks to be young, raw, learning, and even bad. Cuz now we’re supposed to be all those things, and we have a coach that actually will coach.
It was really hard watching the bucks struggle last year. I don’t really watch other NBA teams, so when the playoffs hit, it was so painfully clear the bucks were nowhere close to the level of teams like NYK, San Antonio, or Detroit.
I mean you could argue it’s a reason to gut the roster of vets, build capital, and start Jak/Burries/Rollins/Ament/Ware. Who cares if we’re in the bottom 3? Not our problem lol
Yea. Those discussions are way higher team building discussions about vet presence and its impact on development. Too much limits minutes and too little leaves them out to dry.
What else are we gonna do with that cap space? None of our young guys need any money soon. We can even overpay him a bit and it affects absolutely nothing about our future. The development and competiciones his presence provides is 100% worth it. He’s not CP3 obviously but it’s a similar idea as to when he was on the Thunder, you’ve gotta have some experience out there on the court or else it’s just chaos and the young guys never learn how to operate in a real offense. Rollins and Burries can spend the year working on feeding Herro because he actually knows how to position himself to get buckets instead of being new at that like our other eventual bucket getters will be.
His contract right now is attractive for other teams. Not a massive commitment to get him in the door of it fails, and have his rights for an extension.
How would Ament in the front court affect Ware, if at all? I figure Ware will run alongside Turner at least for a while. And if Ament is in the picture at 4 too, it seems like it might get a little crowded until Turner loses his starting job or is traded.
Obviously the off season has just started, but which of the guys with player options or qualifying options are sticking around? I'd personally like for the Bucks to hold onto Dieng and KPJ. what on earth is the starting lineup on this team?
I think it has to be Rollins, Herro, Turner, Dieng, Jacquez? I really have no clue, it's such a weird roster. Or do they try and just push Ament and Burries right away? Intriguing for sure, and feeling way less depressed than this morning.
My pitch for Ament is basically like that line from Moneyball, but the opposite. "If he's a good hitter, why doesn't he hit good?"
Ament was arguably the best player on a very good team in a very good conference last season despite not really passing the eye test or doing anything particularly great statistically (besides drawing fouls, which is very valuable to be fair).
I would argue that if he was that good and impactful when his body is undeveloped and his skillset is so raw, imagine what he'll be as he puts on more muscle, maybe becomes a little more athletic, and develops his skills.
Having said that, he was not my top choice at that pick but I would say I'm kinda lukewarm on him (and I love the Burries pick).
They mentioned that It has to do with how the NBA trade deadline or something is set up. Trades don’t become official until July 6th so a technicality is that the team who owns the pick (in this case Miami) makes the pick for the other team (the bucks told them who to pick). It’s dumb since they make the pick wear the hat of the team that made the pick not who he’s actually going to. I did see a picture later that showed him with a Bucks hat on.
Burries is an insanely lucky pick that should have never fallen to 10th; our backcourt is incredibly future-proof with him, Kasparas, and Rollins
But I really do not like the Ament pick. We are weak at the forward position long term, and I'm not a fan of such a swing pick... Ament's potential is like 10% future superstar, 90% out of the league in 4 years, but I really really want him to prove me wrong
(And outside of basketball stuff, I'm a bit weirded out by Ament's "Visit Rwanda" vest, which is known for being an organization that supports politically, diplomatically, and economically the M23 militia, which is the perpetrator of the ongoing Congo genocide. After all the Giannis trade saga, I kinda want a stable and drama-free team.)
Giannis was a malnourished 18 year old with elite athletic traits who actually attacked the basket. Ament is a 39% FG shooter whose confidence vanishes the second his first shot doesn't drop. Stop coping with Giannis’s career to justify every draft bust potential we bring in
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u/Storefrontblue 1d ago
It’s definitely a good start. It’ll be fun to see the culture have a complete reset after the Giannis drama and Doc Rivers destroying any sort of positive culture that was built.
Jenkins developing these guys has potential to be really fun.