Monroe opts in, leaving Bucks with little options for free agents now and in future

Milwaukee may need to spend big on Jabari Parker next year

Don’t expect the Milwaukee Bucks to make any big free agent signings in the near future.

With Greg Monroe exercising his $17.9-million player option, the Milwaukee Bucks’ roster is pretty much capped out unless newly hired first-year general manager Jon Horst is a trade wizard.

The salary cap this season is $99 million. The Bucks are at $106 million and that doesn’t include what Tony Snell might get as a restricted free agent.

This isn’t a great free agent year, anyway, so Monroe may be the best “signing” the Bucks could get.

But, this was likely the only year Milwaukee would be able to sign a big-name, high-priced free agent, with the looming cloud of Jabari Parker’s status after next season.

Parker will be a restricted free agent at this time next year – as Snell is right now. He’s due to come back from his second left-knee ACL tear in his first three seasons right around the trade deadline, meaning he will have no trade value.

The Bucks’ cap will be around $75 million at this time next year without adding the potentially $10-16 million Snell might command. The salary cap is projected to be between $102-124 million – and likely on the lower side of that projection.

In other words, if Parker comes back healthy, he’ll get $18-20 million – Giannis Antetokounmpo signed a 4-year, $100 million contract – and that leaves the Bucks with no cap space.

Parker could also get an offer from another team that would force the Bucks to match or let him walk. There are so many scenarios to this, it’s impossible to explain them all.

The likely one, however, is if Parker’s health is in question, Milwaukee doesn’t re-sign him (and no other team makes him an offer). That allows Parker to play out the fifth and final year of his rookie deal for around $8.8 million and become an unrestricted free agent after that.

That would potentially give the Bucks some cap flexibility next season.

Regardless, the Monroe deal just leaves Milwaukee with the inability to make any big free agent signings now. Whether that’s a good thing or not, is unclear because who knows what free agent may have come to play with Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton and a brand new arena soon.

Monroe played the least amount of minutes in his career last season – and that includes the season he was injured and only played 66 games.

Everyone loves to call him the workhorse down low, but his style still doesn’t fit the new NBA or the Bucks roster. He’s also as bad as NBA champion Zaza Pachulia at missing layups. OK, nobody’s quite that bad.

The Bucks entered last season in win-now mode, getting under contract John Henson and Matthew Dellavedova to four-year deals and Mirza Teletovic to a three-year contract all totalling $117.9 million of wasted cap space.

Of course, Milwaukee didn’t bet on Khris Middleton being out until midseason and then Parker blowing out his knee again just as Middleton was coming back, but that doesn’t hide the fact that Henson, Dellavedova and Teletovic were all worthless at basketball.

Now, the key signing this offseason will be Snell, and there’s no reason not to keep him at all costs anymore because Milwaukee has very little other options, unless by some miracle a sucker is out there to unload any of those three contracts.

Snell, at least, started to hit some 3-pointers down the stretch and has always been a solid defender – essentially the only things needed to play in the NBA now days. 

If by some miracle Parker comes back a second time and looks how he did last season, the Bucks – despite its terrible offseason last year – might actually have a shot to make it out of the first round of the playoffs. That’s something they haven’t done since Sam Cassell, Ray Allen and Glenn ‘Big Dog’ Robinson took Milwaukee to a Game 7 against the Philadelphia 76ers in the Eastern Conference Finals back in 2001.

And we all know how that turned out. Wait, nobody remembers that? Well, read Bill Simmons’ account:

If crooked NBA playoff series were heavyweight boxers, then the 2002 Western finals (Lakers-Kings) was George Foreman and the 2001 Eastern finals (Bucks-Sixers) was Earnie Shavers. Translation: People remember only George, but Earnie was almost as memorable. To briefly recap, Philly’s wins in Games 1 and 4 swung on a controversial lane violation and two egregious no-calls. The Sixers finished with advantages of 186-120 in free throws, 12-3 in technicals and 5-0 in flagrant fouls. Glenn Robinson, one of Milwaukee’s top-two scorers, didn’t even attempt a free throw until Game 5. Bucks coach George Karl and star Ray Allen were fined a combined $85,000 after the series for claiming the NBA rigged it. In that game, Milwaukee’s best big man, Scott Williams, was charged with a flagrant foul but not thrown out, only to be suspended, improbably, for Game 7.

The defining game: When Philly stole a must-win Game 4 in Milwaukee despite an atrocious performance from Iverson (10-for-32 shooting), helped by a 2-to-1 free-throw advantage and a host of late calls. How one-sided was it? When an official called a harmless touch foul to send Sam Cassell to the line with two seconds left and the Bucks trailing by seven (maybe the all-time we-need-to-pad-the-free-throw-stats-so-they-don’t-seem-so-lopsided-afterward call), the subsequent sarcastic standing ovation nearly morphed into the first-ever sarcastic riot. And this was Milwaukee, the most easygoing city in the country! Nobody remembers this. The real loser was Allen, who exploded for 190 points in the series, including a record nine threepointers in do-or-die Game 6. Nobody remembers this, either. Even I didn’t remember it. Crap.