Despite what you may have heard, there are a few fresh oases left in the increasingly barren desert that is the NBA’s Eastern Conference. LeBron James, the best player alive, still plies his trade there. The Sixers have kickstarted the process into overdrive by drafting Markelle Fultz and drafting J.J. Reddick. Assuming they stay healthy, Philadelphia could be scaring the bejeezus out of everyone in a few short years. Washington has a young backcourt that can trade buckets with anyone.
There’s also the Milwaukee Bucks, who have a lot to offer. Giannis Antetokounmpo is arguably the league’s most exciting young player. The widely-panned Thon Maker pick is turning out better than anyone anticipated. Khris Middleton and Tony Snell are a pair of 25-year-old 3-And-D wings. Jabari Parker can average 20 points a night if he can just stay healthy. It’s the sort of bright future that the East desperately needs more of in a summer when the league’s power imbalance has shifted even further to the West.
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So leave it to Milwaukee to mull over ways to fuck it all up:
Derrick Rose should be no one’s idea of an impact free agent. A longtime defensive cipher, Rose has now lost much of his burst thanks to a series of knee injuries, reducing a game-changing rim attacker into a merely good one. That skill set certainly has a place in the game but only so much of one when it’s packaged with poor defense, an inefficient assist-to-turnover ratio and a three-point shooting mark of 21.7%. And because Rose needs the ball in his hands to do the one thing he’s still effective at doing, he’s a poor fit to play alongside Antetokounmpo, the bellwether of every good thing Milwaukee does.
But really troubling part is the idea of dumping contracts to free up room to sign him. The only way to do that is by packaging those with genuine assets, be it players or draft picks. Thanks to the salary cap flattening out, the league suddenly has a bevy of available players hunting for too little money, because very few teams have the cap space to play around with on the open market. In other words, the sliver of franchises who can eat bad money will be able to demand a king’s ransom to do so. As in, a “surrendering a first-round pick to dump John Henson”-sort of ransom.
The Bucks are still some ways away from actual title contention, which means they should not want to do this. They especially should not want to do this if the endgame is a deeply flawed player who recently stood trial for sexual assault and no-showed a game last year, too. It’s the sort of move Milwaukee needs to stay far away from, both for themselves and the idea of more long-term hope in the East.
