Hanifan's Offseason Outlook: Evaluating the Milwaukee Bucks' 2024 Offseason - Hot Hot Hoops

Hot Hot Hoops senior writer Matt Hanifan will provide his take on the offseasons of all 30 teams for the next 30 days! Today, we are looking back on the Milwaukee Bucks’ offseason!

Previous Offseason Outlooks:

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Additions: Taurean Prince, Gary Trent Jr., Stanley Umude, Delon Wright

Subtractions: Thanasis Antetokounmpo, Jae Crowder, Malik Beasley, Danilo Gallinari, Patrick Beverley, Jaylin Galloway, TyTy Washington

Re-signed: None.

Draft: A.J. Johnson (No. 23 overall), Tyler Smith (No. 33)

Hanifan’s Take: I think the Bucks made a few of the best value signings this offseason, adding Gary Trent Jr., Taurean Prince and former Heat guard Delon Wright all on minimum deals. Trent was seeking a salary upwards of $25 million, according to TSN’s Josh Lewenberg. He was clearly the best 3-and-D guard on the market at the time, though I think his defense has tailed off ever-so-slightly from what it was when he first arrived in Toronto. Nevertheless, he will help juice up a Bucks backcourt that was a porous point-of-attack unit from a year ago. So will Wright, one of the best defensive bench guards in the NBA; he was No. 13 in deflections per 36 minutes last year, averaging 3.9 (min. 500 minutes). To this day, I’m still confused why Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra didn’t deploy him more than, say, Patty Mills. Alas, he will help fill the void left by Beverley, who’s now overseason. General manager Jon Horst did a great job adding value around the edges. Additionally, I was high on A.J. Johnson as a prospect–go back and watch the Combine tape. That said, I’m not sure this was the ideal destination for him; he’s raw and may be a year away from being a year away. However, selecting Tyler Smith in the second round was an excellent value pick and one who could benefit from learning behind Bobby Portis and Brook Lopez. While he may need to bulk up, he’s got a sweet shooting stroke and can score at all three levels, though I expect his role to be fairly limited as a rookie. Even though I am still not sold on this team’s championship aspirations because of the man patrolling the sidelines, I was a big fan of how Milwaukee went about its offseason, for the most part.