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Wednesday 30 October 2019 23:49, UK
Tying Giannis Antetokounmpo down to a four-year contract which has turned out to be a bargain was a masterstroke by the Milwaukee Bucks back in 2016, but their NBA title window is now closing quickly. Sky Sports NBA analyst Mark Deeks explains why...
You could argue that the Milwaukee Bucks' championship window opened when they drafted Giannis Antetokounmpo in 2013. Everything that has followed since then only exists because that move happened.
More practically, though, the window opened last year. It began when they hired Mike Budenholzer to be the new head coach of the team, and it fully opened when, in the subsequent free agent window, they were able to snag the somewhat-pioneering Brook Lopez on a one-year, $3.382m contract.
It seems silly to say that any team only became a contender when they were able to sign a particular veteran so cheaply. After all, the same summer, Milwaukee gave Ersan Ilyasova six times that amount. But the arrival of Lopez was concurrent with the much-changed philosophies brought in by Budenholzer saw the Bucks maximise the other talents on the roster they already had, Giannis in particular, and go from a middle-of-the-pack low playoff seed to having the best record in the NBA in just one season.
The fact that the Bucks could not overcome the stifling defence of the Toronto Raptors in the 2018 Eastern Conference Finals should not be taken too heavily. It is not an indictment of the legitimacy of their team as constructed that they were unable to best a juggernaut of a defensive unit that ended up ultimately winning an entirely deserved NBA championship. This Bucks team will be a contender again this season, or should be, barring significant injury or another otherwise unforeseeable disaster.
For the most part, Milwaukee will bring back the same team as last year. In our look at the Denver Nuggets earlier in the week, we explored the value of continuity in an era of enhanced player movement and in a subsequent look at the Golden State Warriors, we saw how difficult it can be to keep the band together in that same era when enough important free agencies dovetail together.
Milwaukee wound up somewhere between the two. Of their seven leading minute recipients in the Eastern Conference Finals, five were free agents this summer, and a sixth (Eric Bledsoe) would have been were it not for an unexpected mid-season extension. The important bit is that Milwaukee were able to bring three of their key free agents back.
The two that left - Nikola Mirotic and Malcolm Brogdon - were no small departures. This is particularly true of Brogdon, a player who Milwaukee had grown over the previous three years to be an excellent all-around combo guard, an amazingly efficient player who particularly thrived in the Budenholzer era considering his excellent shooting, discipline, defensive flexibility and high IQ on both ends of the court. His departure was however inevitable - or at least, if not his, then someone's was.
Having been able to sign Antetokounmpo to a four-year, $100m extension in 2016 that was below the maximum he could have received, one that has aged even more favourably in the years since due to the subsequent salary cap explosion, Milwaukee have been in the privileged position of having one of the game's great players at a bargain price.
This has allowed them to bring in expensive but quality ancillary pieces like Mirotic to make short-term pushes for playoff success. It has also allowed them to get away with some mistakes in their roster building, in particular a long-standing tendency to overpay bench contributors (Tony Snell, Mirza Teletovic, Matthew Dellavedova, John Henson and maybe even Ilyasova spring to mind).
It is the good fortune or foresight of the Giannis contract that has allowed them to aggressively try to keep things together this summer. Certainly, they lost Brogdon, a significant loss. But the Giannis bargain allowed them to re-sign Khris Middleton to a substantial five-year, $177.5m deal, be able to bring back Lopez on an increased salary (four years and $52m but still excellently good value, find a little bit of money for George Hill (two years and $20m) and also sign the Bledsoe extension in the first place.
Maybe the money that Bledsoe got would have been better served being allocated to Brogdon. Maybe the fact that Bledsoe was able to receive such a big extension, whereas Brogdon would have had to go to free agency and be re-signed, was the tipping point in why he got the money instead in a summer when the team had so many other questions to answer.
Either way, as above, the Bucks have been able to spend to stay competitive at a time when the Raptors have lost Kawhi Leonard and thus the defence that made them champions. The Eastern Conference is open again, and Milwaukee are still in business.
There is, however, an element of urgency about this competitive window now. The Giannis bargain ends in two years' time, and, whether they can admit it publicly or not, the Bucks' brass will know that he is as deserving as anyone in the world of the 'Supermax' contract that will pay him roughly double what he currently earns. This will take a big chunk out of the available salaries for the supporting cast. And in turn, just as it has already meant for Brogdon, this will mean inevitably losing some quality players.
Compounding this is the fact that in order to rid themselves of the aforementioned bench overspends, the Bucks have had to move cheap draft assets to facilitate deals. They gave up their 2019 first-rounder to move on from Snell, and now owe their 2022 first-rounder to Cleveland in the deal to move Henson and Dellavedova.
They also owe their 2020 first-round pick to the Boston Celtics from the deal to get Bledsoe two years ago, and although getting a non-lottery first-round pick back from Indiana in the Brogdon sign-and-trade slightly salves this, losing these draft assets means missing out on opportunities to get young cheap talent.
Once the Giannis Supermax kicks in, the need for young, cheap, mouldable talent becomes greater and Milwaukee has had to give away the chances to get it.
Be advised, though, that this is not in error. This is deliberate. Milwaukee are all-in right now, because they have the best shot at an NBA Finals appearance they've had in recent memory. Before this past season, the Bucks had advanced beyond the first round of the playoffs only once in the previous 30 years.
They have not made the NBA finals for 45 years but with the Raptors losing Kawhi and the Boston Celtics losing both Kyrie Irving and Al Horford, coupled the momentum gained and principles established in the 60-win campaign last year, a place in the Finals is ripe for the taking. And no matter who comes out of the loaded Western Conference, in a seven-game series, the Bucks can give anybody a run.
With the exception of dynasties such as the one just witnessed in Golden State, no team's competitive window is ever really open for more than a couple of years. Especially given the frequency with which players change teams now, strategising much beyond the first year or two is hard to do, and harder to do well.
Living in the moment sees Milwaukee as one of the best teams in the NBA, and if they have had to commit large salaries now that will need moving in the future so as to be more competitive now, so be it.
What this does mean, however, is that the next season or two are of paramount importance to the future of the Milwaukee Bucks franchise. If this team tapers off its performance and is not as good as expected, the options available for reloading are slim.
There will not be much internal growth on a veteran roster, and in signing players like Wes Matthews, Robin Lopez and Kyle Korver, nor are the Bucks looking for there to be. This is a veteran team that needs to be good now. Which means that if they aren't, it could be terminal.
As problems go, this is about as good as they come for an NBA franchise. The Collective Bargaining Agreement is designed in every way to promote the cyclical nature of the NBA, whereby every team, if run well, has the opportunity to rise up and compete.
It has taken a couple of generations to reach this point, but with the Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers having made four consecutive NBA Finals appearances despite being historically two of the least successful franchises in the league, along with Toronto winning their inaugural title and Milwaukee being a contender for the first time in forever, the system is working in that respect.
The Bucks are currently benefiting from this, which means they will inevitably one day start to suffer because of it. Boom and bust is a feature, not a bug. So be it. From the day nearly a year-and-a-half ago that they hired Budenholzer, they opened the championship window, and it has been closing on them ever since. Such is the way of the beast.
None of this should overly dampen enthusiasm for where Milwaukee are positioned heading into the current season. Considering the pitfalls they faced with so many important players hitting free agency at one time, the Bucks have come through with a strong roster that retains the core excellence of their team along with enough depth to somewhat offset the Brogdon loss.
They really could win the NBA championship this coming season. And they also might need to.
