Milwaukee Bucks: 5 biggest offseason mistakes
By Jim Quinlan
3. Failure to address future at point guard
The Bucks will have a nice point guard rotation in 2018 with Eric Bledsoe taking most of the minutes and Malcolm Brogdon most likely manning the second unit. Matthew Dellavedova. of course, will mop up any remaining minutes at point guard. As much as Delly is limited, he’s a solid third-string point guard. After 2018, however, there could be a lot of changes.
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Let’s start with Bledsoe. He will be a free agent after this season and will likely demand 20+ million dollars per year. He is also a player that depends greatly on his athleticism and is quickly approaching his age 30 season. Considering his questionable fit next to Antetokounmpo and his injury history, the Bucks would be ill-advised to committ that much money to Bledsoe long term.
Ok now to Malcolm Brogdon. Most Bucks fans love Brogdon (myself included), he’s tough, smart, and has skills that complement Antetokounmpo. However, he may be better suited long-term as a shooting guard rather than a point guard. He has difficulty guarding the quicker, smaller players and offensively isn’t a pure facilitator. He also happens to be a restricted free agent next year, so the Bucks can keep him if they really want, but they may have to pay up for him.
This ties in to the other mistakes the Bucks made this offseason. Point guard was more of a position of need for the future and they went ahead and drafted a shooting guard in DiVincenzo.
The Bucks are deep at shooting guard both short-term and long-term with Tony Snell, Brogdon, Sterling Brown, and now even Pat Connaughton. I would have liked to see them either trade back and get a guy like Elie Okobo, or make a larger move up in the draft and get a guy like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Both of whom have turned some heads so far in summer league.
The failed trade with the Hawks may have resulted in the Bucks drafting a point guard, but we will never know. Trading up possibly would have involved trading Bledsoe or Malcolm Brodgon, but based on the facts above that should have been a risk the Bucks were willing to take. Instead, we may be wondering who the starting point guard is going into Giannis FA season.