Milwaukee Bucks: Salary cap death by a thousand cuts
By Max Carlin
The Milwaukee Bucks have avoided signing one massive, cap-crippling deal, but repeated minor mistakes have left the franchise in an unenviable position.
It’s easy to spot the Joakim Noahs, Luol Dengs and Timofey Mozgovs of the world. Some NBA players are so comically overpaid they force themselves into an awkward limbo, an uncoordinated dance between franchise and player.
Their contacts are too encumbering to trade and too large to waive, yet the players are too limited to contribute on-court. These players are problems, very serious problems, single-handedly ravaging a team’s cap sheet and restricting flexibility.
Thankfully, the Milwaukee Bucks have avoided inking one of these contracts (though let’s revisit this if the Bucks do retain Jabari Parker’s services in restricted free agency). However, the Bucks’ books are far from clean.
Milwaukee has avoided one truly crippling deal, but the team’s financial health is waning on account of a thousand little cuts.
John Henson had a fairly successful season in 2017-18. The Bucks, for the first time in Henson’s six-year career (all in Milwaukee), were better with Henson on the court than off it. In fact, the Bucks were massively better with Henson on than off, to the tune of 9.2 points per 100 possessions. However, in the playoffs, Henson was rendered unplayable by the Boston Celtics’ ability to pull traditional big men away from the comfort of the paint.
Henson’s purely a regular season rotation player, and he’s a halfway decent one. However, at the center position, there’s an abundance of halfway decent regular season rotation players. So, Henson’s four-year, $48 million contract is a bit of an albatross.
Henson’s now through half of that deal, and mercifully, it was structured to maximize future cap space (Henson made more in the first two years than he will in the last two), but the remaining two years and $21.8 million would likely be very hard for Milwaukee to move should the team so desire.
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Matthew Dellavedova’s four-year, $38.4 million pact is similarly meh. Dellavedova’s had two up-and-down years in Milwaukee, the second marked by injuries that caused him to miss over half the season. When healthy, Dellavedova’s been the competent backup point guard Milwaukee signed two summers ago, a walking cliché, among the league leaders in grit, a dependable floor general and spacer.
Quite simply, though, $9.6 million per year isn’t the going rate for competent backup point guards — it’s closer to a third of that. If need be, Milwaukee could probably move Dellavedova, but it would probably take a minor asset to do so, and the Bucks are not exactly an asset-rich team at the moment, with a future first round pick already owed to the Phoenix Suns.
This season was also the first year of Tony Snell’s four year, $46 million contract. Snell is a slightly different story from Henson and Dellavedova. He’s young, and plays a coveted position, and he plays it fairly well. In two years with Milwaukee, Snell’s evolved into a knockdown shooter, hitting at 40.4 percent on 4 attempts from three per game.
After an exceptional postseason showing in 2017, Snell massively disappointed in the 2018 NBA Playoffs, his minutes falling off precipitously, his production cratering. Snell’s a solid player, useful at all times of the year, including April through June. That differentiates him nicely from Henson and Dellavedova, but Snell’s still flawed.
He offers very little in terms of self-creation. He’s a great spot-up shooter, but his jumper lacks versatility, and he struggles to shoot on the move — a must for a shooter who can’t create his own looks off the dribble. Defensively, he flounders despite ample height and length.
Unlike Henson and Dellavedova, Milwaukee would probably find an abundance of takers for Snell if the team made him available, but at $11.5 million per year for three more years, suitors probably wouldn’t surrender a ton for the privilege of paying him.
Milwaukee, meanwhile, has narrowly avoided disaster on a few other deals. There’s the case of Mirza Teletovic, who Milwaukee signed to a too generous three-year, $31.5 million deal two years ago. However, Teletovic’s unfortunate medical condition is likely to let Milwaukee out of that bind.
Milwaukee also inexplicably signed Miles Plumlee to a four-year, $50 million contract, which the Charlotte Hornets equally inexplicably took off their hands (later moving him to Atlanta). Had Hornets owner Michael Jordan not performed Deus ex machina, Plumlee’s deal would’ve been the biggest blemish on the Bucks’ cap sheet.
Difficult financial decisions lie ahead for the Bucks. There’s Jabari Parker’s free agency in just over a month, plus Khris Middleton, Eric Bledsoe and Malcolm Brogdon’s in a year’s time. Keeping everyone will be impossible. Adding anyone new will be even more difficult.
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Milwaukee, however, did not find itself in this unenviable position due to one massive mistake. Instead, repeated negligence, consistent disregard for the future led down this path. Unfortunately for the Bucks, the cuts are adding up.