{"id":77157,"date":"2025-08-17T20:42:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T20:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/77157\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T20:42:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T20:42:07","slug":"nba-expert-proposes-wild-theory-of-bucks-gm-deliberately-tanking-offseason-moves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/77157\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Expert Proposes Wild Theory of Bucks GM Deliberately Tanking Offseason Moves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Milwaukee Bucks general manager Jon Horst has come under the microscope of late for a flurry of surprising summer moves.<\/p>\n

Seemingly motivated to convince nine-time All-NBA power forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, Horst opted to stretch-and-waive the $112.6 million contract of injured nine-time All-Star point guard Damian Lillard. The 6-foot-2 Weber State product tore his Achilles tendon during Milwaukee’s first-round playoff series loss against the Indiana Pacers this spring. <\/p>\n

With that level of injury, it seemed unlikely Lillard would be available for most \u2014 if any \u2014 of the 2025-26 season. So Horst ditched Lillard, and will pay out his contract across the next five seasons instead of the next two. With the extra annual cap space, Horst signed ex-Pacers center Myles Turner to a lucrative four-year, $108.9 million deal. Horst also brought in former Orlando Magic guards Cole Anthony and Gary Harris on minimum deals, and inked 3-and-D ex-L.A. Clippers wing Amir Coffey to a training camp contract.<\/p>\n

These moves are intriguing, sure, but do they upgrade the Bucks’ roster enough to make the team truly competitive in the Eastern Conference?<\/p>\n

No.<\/p>\n

In a fresh column,The Ringer’s Michael Pena <\/a>puts forth an absolute hot take on Horst’s thinking with these roster decisions: he’s sneakily trying to convince Antetokounmpo to demand a trade out of town.<\/p>\n

“At what stage of their denial will someone involved in this doomed partnership realize the second championship Giannis is desperately seeking can\u2019t happen with this roster?” Pena asks. “Horst still has a few chips to move before the trade deadline\u2014Milwaukee\u2019s first-round pick in 2032 is one of the more valuable assets in the entire league\u2014but it\u2019s hard to envision any deals that can bring in the amount of win-now talent they need to seriously contend.”<\/p>\n

“Somewhat related to all of these issues, I\u2019m struck by how low this team\u2019s payroll is now as it ostensibly does whatever it can to compete at the highest level,” Pena adds. “The Bucks rank 23rd in payroll<\/a>, and when you look at their roster, it\u2019s not hard to understand why. Antetokounmpo is set to earn over twice as much money as any of his teammates this season. The only other player who can say that is Utah\u2019s Lauri Markkanen, a trade candidate.”<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s almost like Horst purposely spent the offseason doing everything in his power to sabotage the Bucks in a sly effort to convince Giannis he should request a trade. Whether it comes to that or not, all eyes will be on Horst this season,” Pena notes. “He\u2019ll either need to extract maximum value for one of the league\u2019s brightest stars to kick-start a massive rebuild, or continue to scrape the bottom of the barrel and mine what\u2019s left of his own assets in an effort to turn a fatally flawed roster back into the respectable contender they no longer resemble.”<\/p>\n

This story will be updated…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Milwaukee Bucks general manager Jon Horst has come under the microscope of late for a flurry of surprising…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-77157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}