3 Milwaukee Bucks on Thin Ice Following 2024 NBA Draft

1. Jon Horst

Jon Horst seemingly came out of nowhere when he was announced as the Bucks' general manager in 2017. He hasn't been perfect in his role since then—nobody has—but he has overseen Milwaukee's transformation from a perennial contender for the eighth seed to a legitimate championship contender.

Since Horst took over as GM, the Bucks are 364-191 (.656 win percentage), with one NBA Championship and seven playoff appearances. That's a huge turnaround for a once-struggling franchise.

However, Horst's squad has been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs in back-to-back years. They're also on their third coach in one-plus seasons and have a growing salary cap problem. Oh yeah, and his roster is one of the oldest in the entire NBA.

Horst showed that he was thinking about the next version of the Bucks' roster when he selected Johnson and Smith in the draft. Both players will need a couple of years to develop and Milwaukee hopes they can be part of the second version of the Giannis era.

That's a lot of pressure to put on two 19-year-olds, but even more pressure on Horst. The Bucks' ownership clearly wants to win now and is willing to pay a boatload of money to make that happen. There have been some questions about who is really calling the shots in the Bucks' front office, and those appear legitimate. However, Horst is clearly the face of the decision-making and will be the Bucks' fall guy if they have another down season in 2024-25.

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