When Malcolm Brogdon reached free agency last summer, the Bucks had the ability to match any offer sheet he signed, but opted instead to send him to the Pacers in a sign-and-trade deal in exchange for a handful of draft picks. Speaking to reporters on Sunday when he returned to Milwaukee, Brogdon said he realized in the weeks leading up to free agency that he might not be the Bucks’ top priority.
“I had a pretty good inkling that things may not work out and things may not go in the direction that I thought they were going to go in, so I started to change my mindset and started to identify different teams and prepare myself,” Brogdon said, per ESPN’s Eric Woodyard. “I would’ve loved to play for this team (the Bucks), if they had wanted me. If they had valued me the way the Pacers value me. That’s all I gotta say.”
Despite suggesting that the Bucks didn’t value him like Indiana did, Brogdon expressed no hard feelings toward his old team. Milwaukee has an NBA-best 27-4 record so far this season, while Brogdon – in the first season of a four-year, $85MM contract – is having a career year, so it may turn out to be a win-win outcome.
Although Brogdon’s efficiency numbers have taken a bit of a hit so far this season, he’s averaging career highs in PPG (18.3), APG (7.6), and several other categories. Perhaps most importantly, he has a starring role for his new team in Indiana after being a complementary player for his first three NBA seasons in Milwaukee. Brogdon acknowledged that was a factor in his willingness to move on from the Bucks this past offseason.
“It’s about a new opportunity, a new challenge,” Brogdon said. “Sort of being a leader of a team now is a totally different role, it’s a way bigger role for me, but it’s something I’ve been molded into and something I’ve prepared myself to do over the past three years.
“This is, I think, something that every respected NBA player wants. They want a team that they can call theirs, they want a team that they can still win at a high level, but they have the ball more in their hands and they can control more of the game.”
Bucks butchered this situation in every way. Valued not paying luxury tax over a massive boost in title hopes. Brogdon is easily better than Hill/Lopez and has a much better contract than Middelton. On top of that they shipped him off for a weak package. Terrible job on their part and its not going away until they win the finals.
Yeah they’re really struggling without him…
If your comments were made in September they would carry more force but after winning 18 in a row, having the league’s best record, maintaining a high level of performance when Middleton then Bledsoe went out, and beating both LA’s including demolishing the Clippers I would say I’m over Brogdon.
And they could have had a great player on top of what they are doing now for no subtraction to their roster. You don’t turn down good players in this leauge because of money and you certainly should get Giannis mad, which was a ripple of this as well.
He played 48 and 64 games the previous 2 years so there were legit injury concerns.
They were able to re sign who they needed to.
You know they would have subtraction regardless. There was no way to keep everyone, and Brogdon had good trade value. And he was not going to be top priority on the Bucks like he wanted.
They would not have had the same team if they re-signed Brogdon. They would not have been able to sign Hill and it is questionable whether Matthews would have come to compete for backup minutes.
Is Giannis mad?
It’s easy to have the league’s best record in the weak east.
This year they are equal compare the east/west standings side by side.
Plus 3-0 vs the LA teams.
If memory serves they beat the Rockets and held Harden to 19 pts on 2-13 (1-8 3p) shooting.
I can’t understand how we’re saying the roster moves were “butchered”. It shows a complete lack of understanding of the reality of professional sports in Milwaukee.
Bucks GM is at the top of his game. They can use that money saved from The Brogdon deal to resign Giannis.
When Brogdon says “valued” I think he means with respect to his skill set. Bucks did not see him as a PG.
This is a pretty thoughtless comment. With the money they saved by not keeping him around, they signed Robin Lopez, Wes Matthews, George Hill(who has been outstanding this year) and made room for a healthy Divincenzo. We now have the deepest team in the NBA by a long shot.
Agree 100%, not a championship move
The summary doesn’t mention it, but the article on ESPN includes a couple of quotes from Giannis about how the team would be better with Brogdon on it.
I’ve been saying for months that the Bucks let Brogdon leave because they didn’t want to pay the tax. I’ve also been saying that Giannis didn’t like this move. This article largely confirms both points.
Milwaukee is probably going to lose Giannis, and if so it will be at least partially because they wouldn’t pay Brogdon.
There is not much better than 27-4 and no team has better than 50% chance of winning the title vs. the field. If Giannis wanted to play with Brogdon he should gave the Bucks an ultimatum. Brogdon has been injury prone so Brogdon is correct that he was not valued as highly by the Bucks compared to the Pacers.
The Giannis quotes were reused from an article written on Nov 15 so not exactly fresh insights.
Lollll trash
Can we please stop beating this dead horse already?
Lol, I was about to comment the same thing. There’s nothing more to be said about this situation.
You can only fit so many starting players and great players on a team. Obviously every team wishes they had room for Brogdon. It’s unfortunate that the Bucks do not. Life goes on. There really isn’t anything else to talk about.
I’m not sure why everyone thinks it was a bad idea to move on from a guy who missed significant time in each of the last 2 seasons, and choose not to pay him $20 mil/year.
If memory serves, injury concerns date back to his college days, and may have hurt his draft stock just a smidge.
As far as Giannis “probably” leaving as a free agent, I sincerely doubt the bucks choosing not to retain Brogdon will be his deciding factor. If it is/will be, then he should have made it clear to management just how much $$ he’d be willing to leave on the table to offset Brogdon’s deal. And it’s not like they didn’t keep everyone else Ante wanted back.
Giannis thinks Brogdon left, not that he was tossed. [link] He says he hopes Brogdon (not the FO) made the right call.
Giannis probably likes having Lopez there, drawing the shotblockers outside, rather than Brogdon who wants the ball and to be the man. Also someone 6-10 worries about being the 5 when their team puts their best players out at crunchtime.
Making the star happy is what keeps the star there. The lesson Giannis got is the importance of being #1 priority which he is.
He is almost 10% worse from 3 and below leave average. Chucker territory.
Giannis to GSW is all but a foregone conclusion now.
There might be a way for GSW to get Embiid or Simmons too.
A whole lot more crying about to be done by the rest of the league!
Yes there’s room dor a half-dozen or more max-salary players using Bug rights.