A few weeks ago, I discussed what the Bucks need to do to maximize their offseason possibilities while remaining in title contention. With free agency opening today, I looked at how they might use that avenue to upgrade the roster, but as I mentioned, that’s a limited route for the Bucks due to the second apron. In order to sign a free agent to anything more than a minimum contract, they’d need to use the $5.2m taxpayer version of the mid-level exception.
That’s something they can’t do if they’re over the $189.5m second apron, and they also can’t aggregate outgoing salaries together in a trade. It’s not possible for them to put, say, Pat Connaughton and MarJon Beauchamp together in a deal, no matter what they get in return. If they do manage to drop beneath the second apron and either use any part of that mid-level and/or aggregate salaries in a trade, they’re hard-capped at $189.5 for the entire season.
While they could waive Connaughton and stretch the remaining $18.8m guaranteed on his contract over as many as five seasons to get beneath the second apron, trading out a single salary is a lot more palatable, if harder. A trade that drops team salary by at least $1.9m could put them in a position to duck the second apron and avoid its penalties (which I outlined earlier) But before discussing trades, let’s look at the roster differently than the salary-based view I laid out earlier today.
Stars, young guys, and… not much in between
As it stands, the roster has a trio of bonafide stars who are all still capable of huge postseason performances. When all three are healthy, the Bucks are among the league’s best five teams. When one of them isn’t, they start to get worse. Without Lillard or Middleton, they’re still a playoff-caliber team, but as we saw in 2022, maybe not one who can make a deep run. Without Giannis Antetokounmpo, they’re probably more like a play-in team, as we saw last year and this year. Without two of them? As we saw in Game 4, it can get bad.
Obviously, you have to hope for good health when it matters most. Any team—including the Celtics and Mavericks—would take a serious hit to their title-winning abilities if they lost one of their two or three All-Stars for multiple playoff games. That being said, even if all three of the Bucks stars are healthy, let’s say one has an off night or two. Others need to step up, and we’ve seen these past Bucks three postseasons how important it is to have a rotation of players that help you more than they hurt you filling out the rest of your rotation.
