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The 2024 offseason and all its craziness are mere hours away
At 5 PM Central Time today, NBA teams can “start negotiating with free agents.” I put that in quotation marks because there’s no actual way that teams and players agree on multimillion-dollar contracts so quickly with the onslaught of news that will be reported as soon as the big hand hits twelve, but I digress. Let’s have a look at what the coming days might look like for the Bucks as they shape their roster for 2024–25.
Where does the Bucks’ roster currently stand, salary-wise?
Technically, Milwaukee has only nine players under contract for 2024–25 at the moment, totaling $179.8m. However, they drafted AJ Johnson with the 23rd pick last week and can sign him to his rookie scale deal anytime after July begins. That will add a tenth player and nearly $3m to their books next year, if he indeed signs for the customary 120% of his draft slot value. A.J. Green’s salary for next year isn’t guaranteed until July 7th; he seems like a lock to return, raising team salary by another $2.1m. Second-round pick Tyler Smith can also sign his rookie minimum contract anytime after midnight, worth about $1.2m.
That would put the roster at twelve players and $186m. Teams are required to have a minimum of fourteen players on their standard roster (not including two-way contracts), so the Bucks would have to acquire at least two more guys on top of their current roster and two draftees to be in compliance with league rules. When teams are under fourteen players on their standard roster, they get cap hits worth the veteran’s minimum of $2.1 added to their sheets as placeholders, which are removed when the spots are filled.
There’s a catch here, though. As I outlined earlier in June, the Bucks finished 2023–24 as a second apron team. Unlikely benefits, such as those Khris Middleton has in his contract, are included in the league’s calculation for the second apron, and he has between $2.1m and $2.3m of those next season (sources differ). While the Bucks aren’t liable for that money unless he hits their associated milestones, it is added onto their guaranteed money to result in a second apron number of $182.1m.
That number rises to $188.4m when factoring in Johnson, Green, and Smith. The second apron is at $189.5m, so the way things look, two more contracts will push Milwaukee over the apron again, subjecting them to several restrictions which you can read more about here. They can go as much above the second apron as they want and pay the associated luxury tax, but the only way to reduce this number is by trading away more salary than they bring in or by waiving and stretching someone—say, spreading the remaining $18.8m on Pat Connaughton’s deal over the next five years, resulting in a $3.8m cap hit each season.
What can the Bucks offer free agents?
This is pretty simple: the veteran’s minimum, just like last year and just like every other team. The Bucks are way past the cap and luxury tax lines, which prohibits them from using cap space, the full mid-level exception, or bi-annual exception to sign free agents. They cannot acquire someone in a sign-and-trade unless they can get beneath the $171.3m first apron and this acquisition wouldn’t put them above that figure, since they would then be hard-capped at it for the rest of the year.
Barring a cost-cutting trade that cuts their total team salary by well over $20m (very unlikely), the most they can realistically sign someone to next year is a contract worth the taxpayer portion of the midlevel exception: $5.2m. To use all of that, though, they will need to be far enough below the second apron to fill out their roster to fourteen guys because using any of that money will hard-cap them at the second apron. I ran the math on this after the draft:
To use all $5.2m of the taxpayer midlevel exception, they need to cut at least $6m in guaranteed salary. This too would hard-cap them at the $189.5m second apron.
— Van Fayaz (@lohausfan) June 27, 2024
Again, this assumes Green is guaranteed and both draftees are signed to rookie deals. If they split that $5.2m between two players instead of one, the math changes slightly, but this isn’t a likely scenario since most players’ minimums are the same as—or higher than—what they’d receive if this exception is divided. Of course, the Bucks need not use all of that $5.2m if they gain access to it, so if they were able to sign someone for $4m instead, they’d need to reduce team salary by $4.8m or so.
Who might be available in those salary ranges?
As we see every year, players are willing to take the minimum or a smaller exception to join a team that they see as a good fit, forgoing more money they could get elsewhere. Malik Beasley was the main example of this last offseason for the Bucks on his vet minimum, with Bobby Portis and Bryn Forbes taking the bi-annual and part of the mid-level, respectively, to come to Milwaukee in 2020. Now that decisions have been made on nearly every player and team option ahead of tonight’s “opening,” we have a list of unrestricted free agents to pore over.
Obviously, certain guys on here will get max contracts (LeBron James, Paul George) or other huge numbers (Isaiah Hartenstein, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Klay Thompson) which would only be attainable for their signers via cap room or a sign-and-trade, not options for the Bucks. So we take a sobering look at lesser names who might fill some roles. Speaking of, what could the Bucks use? Obviously there’s the standard youth/athleticism, but here’s a quick few ideas in terms of player types:
- At least one backcourt defender
- At least one wing defender
- A backup point guard
- Big man depth
I feel like I’ve written a few of these every time I preview a transactional period since the 2022 trade deadline. To be fair, the Bucks have often addressed these needs during those times, but usually with pending free agents. Back to the well they go in search of someone new. Let’s start with possible targets at the mid-level, if they can open up the money to use it:
Next, here are many more names who might take the minimum:
I like any of Brown, Dunn, Harris, Highsmith, Marshall, Morris, Okeke, Okogie, or Wright for the Bucks. Barring any trades from the current roster, I think they could get two players at most among these names.
Who are the Bucks’ free agents?
Two players who started 77 and 25 games are no longer under contract with the Bucks: Beasley (27) and Jae Crowder (34 in a week). They finished fourth and eighth on the team in regular season minutes, respectively. Deadline acquisition Patrick Beverley (36 on July 12) started multiple playoff games after averaging 20.9 MPG during his 26 games with Milwaukee also hits the open market. Buyout guy Danilo Gallinari (36 in August) saw as many minutes as fellow free agent Thanasis Antetokounmpo (32 on July 18), who tore his Achilles in May and seems all but guaranteed to miss the 2024–25 season. Finally, two-way point guard TyTy Washington (still just 22) is ineligible for a qualifying offer and returns to free agency after one year with the franchise.
At this point, it will come as a surprise if more than a couple of these players remain. Setting aside Thanasis’ situation for a moment, it was clear that Crowder played his way out of Milwaukee’s plans in a second consecutive postseason, as he was the only Buck who did not appear in the final two games versus the Pacers. Gallo was pressed into action as the Bucks dealt with injuries and a suspension to Bobby Portis in that series; while he did better than expected, he’s old and doesn’t shoot well enough anymore to justify hanging onto. Though he came in with the “Doc guy” reputation, his minute patterns down the stretch suggest that Rivers is ready to move on.
Beasley rehabilitated his value enough last year and is looking for a raise, but the Bucks are limited in what they can offer. Since they only have non-Bird rights on him and no cap space or exceptions available to give him, the highest salary they can put on the table for Beasley is about $3.3m, not much higher than his minimum salary of $3m as an eight-year player. He’s likely to find much healthier offers in free agency, so he’s as good as gone.
Patrick Beverley seems like the most likely name to come back, maybe even more than Thanasis. He has a long history with Doc and will probably be limited to minimum contracts in free agency once more. The raise the Bucks could give him with non-Bird rights is essentially the same as his minimum salary, meaning they don’t really have much of an edge on other teams unless someone wants to give him part of their midlevel exception or cap room. That’s pretty unlikely (though Joe Ingles got $10m last summer, so who knows?) and despite his end-of-season misdeeds, he seemed to love his role with Milwaukee, one which might be similar next year.
Washington saw only 56 minutes over eleven games with the Bucks on his one-year two-way deal but played pretty well in 37 G League games with the Wisconsin Herd. With two years of NBA experience, he’s still eligible for another two-way with the Bucks or someone else. It’s possible the Bucks (or someone else) could sign him to a standard deal, but I would bet he’s looking at another two-way next year. Ryan Rollins and Jaylin Galloway are the Bucks’ other two-way guys and their contracts were for two years, so the team has one spot open right now. These deals are all non-guaranteed and don’t count toward the cap, so they can (and likely will) be shuffled a bit before training camp.
There have been some rumors about Thanasis’ plans for next season that need some more confirmation, but we can safely assume that after undergoing Achilles surgery last month, he’s unlikely to see NBA minutes until very late next season in the best-case scenario. That makes it a given that if he receives an NBA deal—and let’s be real here, it would only happen in Milwaukee—it’ll be for the veteran’s minimum. He didn’t sign his contract last summer until late July, and a deal this summer will be even less pressing.
I’d wager that we’ll see at least one free agent signing by the Bucks in the opening salvo of the offseason, likely to a minimum. As I’ve mentioned, anything bigger will require a trade or waive-and-stretch. We’ll touch on the former later today. Strap in!