Mystery in Milwaukee

The Bucks need to be more patient if they hope to become a contender

When Brandon Jennings picked the Bucks to beat the Heat in 6 games in the first round of the 2013 NBA playoffs, everyone thought he was out of his mind. Jennings' delusion is representative of the franchise's overconfidence in its ability to compete with top level teams. That mindset was on display when the Bucks traded for J.J. Redick at the trade deadline.

Prior to the trade, a number of contenders were rumored to have interest in acquiring Redick. It made sense for teams like the Spurs, Clippers and Pacers to trade a draft pick or a prospect for a dynamite 3PT threat and a solid perimeter defender to improve their chances at making a deep run in the playoffs. The Bucks had an extremely small chance at making it to the finals at the time of the trade deadline, however, they were the team that ultimately traded young prospects (Tobias Harris and Doron Lamb) to acquire Redick.


Some teams were wary of sacrificing too much for Redick because he is in the last year of his contract and he will become an unrestricted free agent in July. That meant that he might only play for whichever team traded for him for a few months. Perhaps the Bucks thought that having Redick for a few months would help them to keep him in Milwaukee. Teams have a financial advantage over the rest of the league when it comes to re-signing their own free agents because teams are able to offer more money to their own free agents than any other team. However, Redick is not a max-level player where this would be much of a factor. The offer that Reddick receives from the Bucks will likely be similar to the offers that he receives from other teams.

Therefore, the Bucks could have simply waited until free agency to offer Redick a contract without having to party ways with any of their assets. The Bucks elected to get rid of Tobias Harris, who has two years left on his contract and who will then become a restricted free agent, which means that the Bucks can match any offer that Harris receives when his deal expires. It is much easier for a team to retain a restricted free agent like Harris will be than it is to retain an unrestricted free agent like Redick. Basically, the Bucks gave up a player with two more years on his deal who will be much easier to re-sign for a player who had a few more months on his deal who will be much more difficult to re-sign.

The Bucks must have thought that Redick would dramatically improve their team because there would be no other reason for them to trade a solid young player like Harris to get a few months of playing time from Redick. That is why it is inexplicable that Redick only played an average of 17 minutes per game in the Bucks' 4 game playoff series. Did the Bucks really think that 17 minutes per game from J.J. Redick would help them in the playoffs?

This is not a new phenomenon in Milwaukee either. At last year's trade deadline, the Bucks traded traded oft-injured center Andrew Bogut for Monta Ellis (in a deal that involved several other minor parts). Rather than trading Bogut for young players and pick, the Bucks opted for Ellis because they must have thought that Ellis would help them become a contender in the East. The Bucks would have been better off trading for players who would help them in the future rather than Ellis, who has been good enough to help Milwaukee finish 9th and 8th in the East in the last two years, respectively.

The acquisitions of Ellis and Redick helped Milwaukee finish in the "dreaded middle" (8th to 10th best team in the conference), where they've been stuck pretty much every year of the Brandon Jennings era (2009-present). This summer they must decide if they want to cough up big money to re-sign Jennings (who is a restricted free agent). Jennings has pretty much established who he is as a player at this point in his career; a speedy shoot-first point guard who can distribute the ball but who has always shot at a low percentage. He is good enough to get Milwaukee into the playoffs but not good enough to get them much further than that.

 If that's their goal then they should go ahead and pay Jennings and Redick and let history repeat itself. If they want to go further than that, they need to get bad before getting good. That means letting Jennings go, trying to sign Redick to a reasonable deal and using next season to develop some of their young players such as Ersan Ilyasova, Larry Sanders, and John Henson. Without Jennings, the Bucks should be a lottery team and the 2014 draft class is shaping up to be a good one. Becoming a high caliber team takes years, and if the Bucks want to become anything resembling a contender, they need to take a step backward before taking two steps forward.

Brandon Jennings' overconfidence is symbolic of the team's misconception of its own ability. Re-signing Jennings to a large contract will only confirm that they still think they are better than they actually are. Either that or the Bucks front office simply does not have the patience to build a great team.