Oso planning to go pro
The (admittedly strong) argument is that he's leaving either way after next season, the Bucks might as well trade him to get something out of it.
He's a complementary player who can't put on team on his back and win a championship. Either bring in an alpha player to play with him or trade him. His value will never be greater. Middleton is not that player. Terrible decision to max him and who knows what Bledsoe actually contributes?
What is Middleton’s contract situation? Rumor picking up steam in Portland is McCollum for Middleton.
I’m not a huge fan of Middleton, but that’d be a horrible trade for the Bucks. Just a worse, smaller, less efficient version of Middleton.
Bush league stuff by Nick Nurse down the stretch of regulation.
https://youtu.be/Cs5RDq5h4-8Total bush league garbage. There’s plenty of room to cheerlead your team without standing inches from the opposing player, and then essentially be on the court where only an offensive player would be when Theis has floated up the court a bit.Even if Theis stayed in the corner and Tatum hit him with a pass, why is Nick Nurse breathing down his neck when there’s literally nobody on the sideline?
2020-21: $33,051,7242021-22: $35,500,0002022-23: $37,948,2762023-24: $40,396,552
Tatum disagrees - https://streamable.com/mj33qi
Those numbers...just boggling. Nothing for or against Middleton, just that numbers like that are jaw dropping for a player that is good but not a superstar.
Like I said earlier, he's a really, really good player who is on an elite player's contract."He's a max player because Giannis wants him to be a max player" is what I was told at the time.
I agree that Middleton deal is an albatross. If Giannis leaves, he's Kevin Love sitting on a huge deal with the Cavs.But if you run the counterfactual, I still don't see a lot of better options, either. The Bucks had the best record in the league and I think most would say that the playoff run would have gone better and longer if not for the 'rona. They were one of two favorites to win the title when play stopped.If the Bucks don't give Middleton that deal, you have to assume he signs elsewhere. There isn't an obvious all-star that would have signed into that cap space last year, so its probably safe to assume they sign some role players to short deals and preserve the cap space to sign someone to the max in 2020. Its hard to imagine the Bucks have the same level of success in 2019-2020 with that strategy, even if you don't love Middleton.So now you let Middleton walk, and didn't put yourself in as good a position for success in 2019-2020. Giannis is significantly more pissed and impatient. The pressure is on to find him a second star. What's the move? Look at this damn list - https://www.spotrac.com/nba/free-agents/. Hayward and the Brow ain't going anywhere. The rest of that list? Blegh. They'd have to trade for someone, but they don't have trade assets, they have cap space. You could try to buy some picks to trade, but presumably you also need the space to sign the trade target to a max deal. The risk of striking out again is very real.My point is that the Middleton deal will probably always look like ugly, but even knowing what we know now, I can't say the Bucks didn't make the right call.
Yea. There definitely were teams that would have offered Middleton the max if the Bucks didn’t. It just shows that the players at Giannis’ level are underpaid compared to some borderline guys that get the max. I don’t believe the Bucks had many good free agent options out there to spend on if they didn’t give Middleton that contract. Butler would have been a good choice, but I don’t know if he had any interest. Also, his rep wasn’t very good (proving to be more his situations than him), so I think there was some caution around him at the time.
I think in retrospect the Bucks would have let Bledsoe walk and look at better options at point.