Coming off a horrific season, the Milwaukee Bucks have not done much this costless agency to fix that, other than of course having the second overall pick in the draft.
The Bucks signed Kendall Marshall early in the off-season, with the intentions of not bringing back Ramon Sessions. Marshall demonstrated his passing skills last season with the Los Angeles Lakers, but his offensive game is inconsistent and needs some work.
Sessions, in contrast, possesses more offensive skills and is a solid play maker as well. Sessions averaged 16.6 points and 6.0 assists per game the final month of last season. He was doing a sound job of filling in for the injured players. It would be a tough task for Marshall to bring the same offensive firepower that Sessions brought during the second half of last season for Milwaukee.
However, Milwaukee made a nice move by signing Jerryd Bayless, who could fill in for the offensive void Sessions has left behind. Bayless plays with a lot of offensive intensity and energy.
One final off-season move the Bucks made was the trade for Jared Dudley. They traded Carlos Delfino and Miroslav Raduljica to the Los Angeles Clippers for Dudley. Raduljica had a fantastic FIBA World Cup outing, but the Bucks felt that they had no room for him in their rotation. Dudley, however, may see some minutes as a backup small forward and could bring additional three-point shooting to the second unit. Though, Dudley fell out of favor with Doc Rivers last season because he went out of shape. Although he does promise to get back into shape this season and plans to play much better than last season.
All in all, the Milwaukee Bucks have had a decent summer. Their costless agency moves will not increase the team’s overall talent level, but at least they were fortunate enough to have a lottery pick to select Jabari Parker.
Grade: C
Depth Chart:
PG: Brandon Knight/Kendall Marshall/Nate Wolters/
SG: OJ Mayo/Jerryd Bayless/Khris Middleton/Chris Wright/Elijah Millsap
SF: Giannis Antetokounmpo/Jared Dudley/Damien Inglis
PF: Jabari Parker/Ersan Ilyasova/John Henson
C: Larry Sanders/Zaza Pachulia/Michael Eric
Coach: Jason Kidd