Milwaukee Bucks: Making sense of the rumors, financially

The 2018 NBA trade deadline is just a week out and the Milwaukee Bucks have been associated with various big names. Evaluating those rumors requires an understanding of Milwaukee’s financial situation.

The trade deadline is an exciting time, perhaps the most exciting time in the fatalistic, Golden State Warriors-run NBA of 2018. It is a time to get carried away, to waste hours on ESPN’s Trade Machine while you should be working, to be ferociously optimistic.

The lead-up to the trade deadline, therefore, is when everyone could use a healthy dose of reality, a reminder that league-altering trades don’t typically fall from the sky like meatballs in Chewandswallow.

A few months ago, when DeAndre Jordan-to-the-Bucks rumors really picked up, I wrote about the unfortunate reality of the Milwaukee Bucks’ salary cap situation. But that topic merits further discussion, especially with rumors renewed in the wake of the Blake Griffin trade.

Where the Bucks stand

The Bucks have $115 million in committed salary this year, so they are operating as an over-the-cap, but under-the-tax team. Therefore, there are a few rules they must follow in any deal regarding how much salary they can take back. Overall, for a team in their position, trading is, in a vacuum, relatively easy.

What makes the Bucks’ situation precarious is their cap situation next year. The Bucks have $104 million in committed guaranteed salary, so they’re already exceeding the projected salary cap of $101 million. However, they will also have to navigate Jabari Parker’s restricted free agency.

When you account for Parker’s qualifying offer (and Malcolm Brogdon’s sure-to-be-picked-up non-guaranteed salary), the Bucks sit at $114.4 million in obligations. But Parker’s exceedingly unlikely to be playing for the qualifying offer next year, so the Bucks project to have more than $114.4 million on the books. They’re likely to end up with over $120 million in committed salary.

With the luxury tax threshold projected at $123 million, the Bucks will have very little wiggle room, perhaps not even enough to add a player on a minimum deal.

So, when messing around on the trade machine, when evaluating trade ideas on Twitter or Instagram, keep this in mind: The Bucks cannot add salary for next year unless Parker is involved in the deal.

How the Bucks got here

As The Athletic’s Danny Leroux is fond of saying, what matters with contracts is years, not dollars. The Bucks missed this memo.

They do not have any true albatross contracts on their roster, which is especially notable given the contract they inked Miles Plumlee to a couple offseasons ago. The Bucks do, however, have a collection of undesirable, long-term contracts on their books.

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The dollar amounts on these contracts aren’t eye-popping. You don’t look at any one of them and think, “Yep, that’s how they destroyed their flexibility.” But the Bucks have so many mediocre-to-bad deals that run for a long time (in NBA terms).

John Henson will make an average of $10.2 million each of the next two years. Mirza Teletovic will make $10.5 million next year. Matthew Dellavedova will make $9.6 million each of the next two years. Tony Snell, while likely worth his deal, will make an average of $11.4 million each of the next three years.

A team can survive one mediocre deal, but when it makes a pattern of committing eight figures over three, four or even five years to mediocre players, it seriously restricts itself. Could the Bucks find takers for each of these contracts? I’m sure. None of them is mind-bogglingly bad, but together they severely constrain the Bucks.

So, when your buddy texts you some out-there trade proposal involving the Bucks taking on some eight-figure, long-term contract, remember: it’s about years, not dollars, and the Bucks have learned that the hard way.

What can the Bucks do?

In terms of something big and flashy, likely nothing. With respect to the favorite target du jour, Jordan, the Bucks could probably make something happen if they were to include Khris Middleton, but doing so would be monumentally stupid. There’s also a chance they could land Jordan if they accept that he is purely a rental, but Jordan will not come cheap; he’ll be too expensive to acquire strictly as a rental.

Realistically, any Bucks deal will likely be low-impact and for a player on an expiring contract, avoiding further complicating Milwaukee’s messy cap sheet this coming offseason. Hawks center Dewayne Dedmon (with a 2018-19 player option he might be liable to decline) could be an option if a Jordan facsimile is what the Bucks desire.

Dallas Mavericks center Nerlens Noel could also fit into that category, though he’d have to approve any trade. If it’s a shooter on the wing the Bucks seek, the Warriors would likely be willing to part with Nick Young or Omri Casspi.

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The above suggestions should, if anything, help calibrate expectations. The Bucks simply do not have the flexibility to make a franchise-altering trade. Maybe Milwaukee will make some small upgrades, but due to past mistakes, to the financial reality of the situation, don’t expect anything big.