The NBA offseason is a time when trade rumors run rampant and teams examine every possible option to upgrade their team, but we often hear about ideas that never truly come to fruition for one reason or another, and Milwaukee Bucks fans learned the hard way this summer. Their team was linked to some of the biggest names on the restricted free agency market, from Bennedict Mathurin to Peyton Watson to Jonathan Kuminga, and many more.
But at the end of the day, the Bucks didn't add any of them and got most of their business over with in the short-term period after NBA free agency first opened. That might seem boring or like a letdown to those who got their hopes up, and understandably so. However, this fails to recognize the truth of the matter, which is that the Bucks are only at the first step of what'll be a multi-year rebuild back to serious Playoff contention, which means it's too early to go all-in.
The Milwaukee Bucks made the right call to see what they have on their roster before overpaying for restricted free agents.
Even without making a big splash in free agency, the Milwaukee Bucks still had a roster overhaul this summer. Their franchise star went on a different path and in turn, the team will have 10 new players under contract between primary roster spots and two-ways, as currently constructed. They're over the roster limit and will need to make some cuts or trades, so that number is subject to change, but the point stands that there's already a lot of new faces in Milwaukee's locker room this offseason.
That means new head coach Taylor Jenkins and the Bucks' brand-new coaching staff will need to adapt on the fly and learn more about a handful of players they've never worked with before. So adding even more players into that mix doesn't make sense unless the talent is just so apparent that it had to be done, and that wasn't the case with this group of players.
Mathurin is a highly intriguing offensive player whose defense leaves plenty to be desired, and the fact that more teams weren't clamoring to sign him should be a sign of how front offices think of him. Kuminga, meanwhile, has been looking for suitors for the better part of two years, and while he would be a worthy swing, the Bucks couldn't even guarantee him a consistent role right now. The one who got away was Peyton Watson, who made sense from multiple standpoints, but it took multiple draft picks to lure him away from Denver, and the Bucks aren't in a position to trade draft picks right now.
So at the end of the day, while it would've been fun to see another newcomer on the roster next season, the Bucks already have their work cut out for them and more than enough depth at every position. Now, the players under contract can enter a heated training camp and pre-season battle with fresh minds focused on the task at hand, without being left to wonder if someone else will enter the landscape to compete for their role.
And all the while, Milwaukee retains the financial flexibility that allowed it to enter these discussions in the first place, putting them on track for a wonderful start to an unprecedented rebuild. Regardless of how you feel about this situation, the best is yet to come for the Bucks.
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