Jason Burgos
A new rumor is very bad news for the Milwaukee Bucks and their hopes of a huge Giannis Antetokounmpo trade bidding war this summer.
The Bucks made a bold decision in February. After finally opening the door to offers on an Antetokounmpo trade, they chose to hold off on a deal and use conversations as an intelligence gathering exercise. The thinking was that if they waited until this summer, more teams and even better trade packages filled with future NBA Draft picks would be available.
Even at 31 and showing serious wear and tear, the future Hall of Famer would still be worth a boatload of draft picks. However, that was before the wild tanking fans saw by nearly a dozen teams in the second half of the season. The strategy angered the league, and they are expected to make major changes to the draft lottery rules as soon as this month, according to NBA insider Jake Fischer.
“The NBA’s much-discussed new ‘3-2-1’ lottery format is expected to win approval in a May 28 Board of Governors vote to be implemented next season, which would present teams with the fourth-through-10th-worst records in the league with an equal 8.1% shot at winning the No. 1 overall pick,” he wrote.
The changes in the rules will mean that more teams in the bottom 16 of the NBA standings will have a much better chance at landing a top pick than ever before. Due to that boost in their chances, Fischer revealed that executives around the game now expect “to see fewer future picks traded for star players in the near term.”
New NBA lottery rules are awful news for Milwaukee Bucks’ summer plans
That is terrible news for the Milwaukee Bucks and their hopes of a huge return in a trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo. Teams around the game might already be resistant to giving up a first-rounder in next month’s event because this year’s class is so deep. So even teams in the 20s could land a player who will make an immediate impact or be a future All-Star.
Now, based on what Fischer is hearing, more teams in the middle of the standings won’t be as willing to throw away picks in the teens because the lottery rule changes give them a far better chance at landing a top-five pick starting next year.
It means that the bidding war the Bucks were hoping for this summer may be less likely, and the same few teams they could have made a deal with in February will be the same small group they will be talking to this summer.
