The new era of Milwaukee Bucks basketball is here, and it won't feature Giannis Antetokounmpo for the first time in 13 seasons. It will take time to get used to the new-look Bucks without their franchise star, but the fans will find a way to get excited about the young players who will be the backbone of the future.
Even though they took care of the most important item on the agenda, the Bucks' offseason is still not done. They still have plenty to do. But at this point, it will be more about saying goodbye rather than welcoming new additions.
Bucks' roster crunch will lead to more trades
Milwaukee is facing a serious roster crunch right now. After the re-signing of Gary Trent Jr., the Bucks are officially at 17 players. They have also filled all three of their two-way contract slots. This means that the Bucks have to part ways with at least two players between now and the start of the season.
There is, of course, no rush to do this. The Bucks can wait until the week before the start of the regular season to do this, as teams are allowed to carry more than 15 players through training camp and preseason. There could be a benefit in training camp competition.
The problem is, it will be much harder to make trades that close to the start of the season. Other teams will have built out their rosters already and may not have roster spots to just acquire players. At that point, the Bucks will have to cut players without getting anything back in return.
That is why it makes more sense to explore trade scenarios now rather than wait until October. Milwaukee has veterans with trade value. Trading them for future assets now makes more sense than waiting three months to cut two of their deep bench players.
Myles Turner, Kyle Kuzma, Caris LeVert, Kevin Porter Jr., and AJ Green have to be considered trade candidates. In fact, it's very surprising how little trade talk we heard about these veterans since the Giannis trade. Given the fact that the Bucks have kick-started a rebuild, one would have thought that they would want to acquire more draft capital for their older veterans.
Trading Turner, Kuzma, and LeVert without getting anything back in return will be difficult for financial reasons. Their salaries are too large for another team to just take them in, especially since Kuzma and LeVert don't have much on-court value to begin with.
Therefore, a consolidation trade could be a possibility where the Bucks give up two players for one or three players for two.
Regardless of how they manage to do it, the Bucks have to make some more moves over the next month or two. The sooner it is, the better it will be to set the franchise up for future success.
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