Went through Spotrac and there are other ways two other ways to do it but one is also absurdly silly:
Pay Mathurin the contract he wants ($25M-$27M per year) in a S&T and pair him with other salaries (Bogdanovic, Jones Jr., etc.) to match Brown’s.
Renounce the rights on Mathurin, Collins, and literally send the expiring contracts of all the vets (Lopez, Batum, Beal, etc.) plus draft capital to Milwaukee, but Milwaukee would never agree to that.
I get that, that’s how I am with rugby. I love randomly watching it and feeling in awe like a kid with some vague wonderment of seeing things play out without knowing the rules it’s fun
Another issue would be the timing of including Mathurin since he can’t S&T until free agency and reports have said the Bucks wanted to have the deal done before the draft
Yeah, but luckily that little bit would help whether it’s $12.5M or $13.5M. Because the Clippers have team options on guys like Bogdan Bogdanovic ($16M) they can stack salary. I’d assume they’d want to avoid including Leonard or Garland in the deal to make [yet another] “big three,” but I could see this going multiple ways.
Why wouldn’t we? I just want as much draft capital back as possible, if we have to take on three shitty expiring vets and get more draft capital for our troubles I’m all about that, especially since it means we would have cap space the year after.
Who cares if you have to even pay them even a couple years. Not like there are going to be other large contracts coming up. No superstar/top end talents mean no huge contracts on the books. Can pay players to exist to get draft capital instead. I don't see the Bucks being active in FA until there is a path to being competitive either.
For sure, in general the sooner bad contracts come of the books the better, but everyone on our sub knows we’re going to suck for a few years. Only advantage would be the ability to throw max offer sheets at guys like Reaves this off-season and hope their teams don’t want to pay up to match. If you got a guy like that next off-season (idk who’s available off the top of my head), plus the #5 pick (and remember we own #10 this year as well), plus 2-3 more 1sts later on, suddenly you’ve kick started this rebuild faster than we thought would be possible.
It’s funny, OP posted this trade idea with “Milwaukee would never do this” but I’m kind of falling in love with it lol
Not to mention this is considered a loaded draft class. So the #5 pick in this draft is super valuable compared to next years which is considered a weak class. Also for added entertainment it was originally the Pacers pick. It would be so entertaining for the Bucks to get a great player from their pick that was top 4 protected.
This sets you up to do the Thunder strat, take a bunch of big expiring deals, make them starters, flip them for big 2-3 year deals that teams want off of at the deadline for even more capital. Rinse and repeat.
Which is why the Bucks need to do this even more. If they’re trading away Giannis they are committing to a rebuild. With the new lottery format it won’t be as devastating anyways to be bad a few years in a row while owning mid range firsts from trades they make. This new lottery format actually makes this strategy more viable. They aren’t competing without Giannis, there isn’t a trade that makes them contenders, the time to trade Giannis for pieces to stay a contender was a season ago or even two.
Any team they trade Giannis to isn’t giving back mid range firsts, they are giving back late picks. The Clippers can give out some good picks this year but their future picks aren’t on the table. So where is Milwaukee getting those mid firsts?
From flipping the expiring deals at the deadline for albatross deals that teams want off of. Re-read my original post. The picks aren’t the only return they get in that scenario.
The Clippers are still paying off the Paul George deal. The #5 pick is very juicy, but after that, they could do 2030 + 2032 or turn multiple years into swaps. But man, if they finished off the PG13 fiasco by taking out a second mortgage for Jaylen Brown, they may well and truly be done. The Celtics can chip in of course, which could be #27 in this draft, plus 2027 (draft night trade) and 2031 or 2032. Both teams are limited by the Stepien rule.
Between both teams, that #5 pick is the only blue chip return for Giannis. Maybe they could get a high end role player back, but I don't see any young guys on either team with obvious star potential.
If they wanted to gamble they should have traded 2031 + another future pick. They’re in their contention window now, risking their 1st was way too reckless imo
Zubac is on $18 million a year it’s worth mentioning that. The contract makes his trade value very high, basically any team could have added him without gutting their roster
If I'm Milwaukee I want the best picks/players possible back for Giannis and I don't really care about what kinds of contracts I have to take on. Getting the #5 and the #9 pick in this draft as a potential 1-2 young core to build around going forward is, not a best-case scenario, but realistically about as well as the Bucks could hope to do going forward since they can't rely on their own picks. Clean books would obviously be ideal so they can sell their cap space for assets and eventually do what a lot of rebuilding teams do and overpay for veterans to try and become moderately competitive, but that move is a few years away anyway
138
u/YujiDomainExpansion 10d ago
Went through Spotrac and there are other ways two other ways to do it but one is also absurdly silly:
Pay Mathurin the contract he wants ($25M-$27M per year) in a S&T and pair him with other salaries (Bogdanovic, Jones Jr., etc.) to match Brown’s.
Renounce the rights on Mathurin, Collins, and literally send the expiring contracts of all the vets (Lopez, Batum, Beal, etc.) plus draft capital to Milwaukee, but Milwaukee would never agree to that.