ITs an odd thing. I can't imagine bucks fans screaming PJ, Holiday, Middleton contracts are terrbile, we want to save Marc Larsy Money! Or calling Dame weak for coming up short for years, or even giannis and his freethrows saying we wont win with this guy, lets do a proper rebuild and save the owner money. I do wonder f thats something that goes on for other teams, I've never seen an owner only fans(as in rooting for moves that only benefit one guy even hurt the team) like that until I got here. heck most of my experience is at rockets game, the bars and I came here since that was sadly gone this last year and was surprised to here the tilman only guys, its such a curious thing and you gotta wonder where that subservient mentality or that loyalty for a guy who just came in and oversaw the tear down to the bottom of the league. I do wonder if they pay for tickets, its a bit different when you goto games this year, not one being meaningful and we get charged more while he saves money.
Nothing but positive vibes for my man PJ Tucker. Richly deserving! The dude worked his ass off, brought it every night, whether he scored or not. We can only hope to have another tough-as-nails, hard-working teammate even close to PJ's caliber. Hoping Tate will be that guy.
" Former Houston Rockets guard Chris Paul was on the Knuckleheads podcast with Darius Miles and Quentin Richardson and explained the impact of the Rockets losing Ariza. “People don’t realize, that’s the biggest thing that we missed. That was tough when we lost [Ariza] because he sorta was like the glue. He was that glue for our team.”" Harden wasn't the only one. Don't forget Tucker wanted out, MDA, Bezdelik, MORey, Brown....Championships team need depth. PEople here were screaming how worthless tucker was at this point in his career, the dude had 0 points, but plyed 36 minutes and won a chip. Shows theres more to stats, theres a lot of ways to contribute. Fact is we got close in 2018, then cheaped out on depth, roster, watering down our assets. thats why those players, Giannis, Harden, :Lebron, kobe, you name it would all say the same thing...spend and invest in this team, or trade me
Anybody that thought Tucker wasn't extremely valuable because he doesn't score much is someone whose opinion on basketball should never be respected.
Big respect to PJ Tucker man. Grinded his ass off in Ukraine, Israel, Greece, Germany, Italy, Puerto Rico. Finally got back into the NBA. And now he's a champion.
Here's the thing, the Ariza loss was what started the unraveling and fans could not recognize what was happening at the time. If you put a player like Giannis in that exact situation the result would be the same. He would not sign an extension, or if he already had he would be asking for a trade. The reason he stayed is because they did improve, they did not cut costs, and it payed off in the end.
I cant blame any of the players that wanted to leave with this ownership. Hell I wouldve cheered for Harden to get a ring but I hate KD more than I like Harden.
IT was teh first domino really. And you know what, they try to make it a binary option, but I don't mind ariza leaving. NBA is a tough decision league, but then replace him, do something, sign and trade, don't just use min contracts AND trade those same contracts for savings when those players are in contention. We watered down our depths, and to the unwitting casual fans cheaped out on non headliner moves which real serious contenders do spend on. WE couldn't replace that contract bc we didn't use the bird rights, we ignored all our assets, taded a first round pick to save money that year too. People just refused to accept it, arizA went 0-12...lol but here is milwaueke, paying for pj tucker(we'll see this summer too)), playing him 36 minutes for a 0 and still realizing he can get you wins and they messed around and got a title when everyone here would be screaming don't tade a first for tucker, or holiday is not worth the max, no thanks, lets keep moeny in tilman's pokcets...and by the attitude here, if we were in their position we would not go for the ring bc no one would want to pay for middleton, holiday, especially tucker, maybe they'd even lose faith in giannis call him a choker who can't adjust, got swept his mvp year, missed big free throws and almost lost by an inch on KD's foot last serise, but the nba championpships are a grind. people act like its an exact formula you can predict
Yea bc we basically did not play a single meaningful game this year, i was just going for any former rocket to win be it morey, ahrden, paul, tucker, or even capela. So happy Tucker got one, the real ones know this guy left his heart on the floor in houston and respected that. Milwaukee gave him more respect than some tilman only fans on this board, now they got their ring even with him scoring 0 in 36 minutes...almost like he contributes beyond the box score
No one thinks Tucker has a bad contract. The issue is the extension that Tucker wanted. Why give an aging role-player veteran a big extension when we're clearly about to rebuild? How often does that happen? Regarding Holiday and Middleton, those are all-star caliber players. There's a big difference between paying $30m to an all-star caliber player versus paying $15m to a role player like Ariza.
I agree man. I hear ya he is aging, its a real consideration. But lets see waht the bucks do, if they are serious for winning adn they gave up a first for him, they will run it back and pay. Its almost exactly hte same sitaution as ariza except tucker is even OLDER. My bet is they are going to not let him walk, bc if you're in this window with giannis, they will go all in. If bucks dont, water down and don't replace him as well with talent, or didn't give holiday and middleton crazy contracts....Giannis may just be in miami. The stars aren't going to put up with generating 80 percent of the revenue while getting the blame for losing when its ateam game. They've wised up. Gone ar the nba money of the 90s,00s, its a whole new ball game now and the part and cost is raising. WE can complain and be mediocre, or step up to the new billionaire league and at least try to swing for cluth city again. The ariza sitaution translates to pj tucker. A veteran, locker room guy, glue guy, not always putting up stats, but finds ways to make an impact, impacts the culture, so on and so forth so lets see what type of organization they are. WArrios pay crazy contracts for oubre or whoever they can get their hands on, their fanbase aren't crying about saving the owner money. That ariza contract was a one year gig, no future flexiblity issues, no future risk, just a one year run it back, or just keep the money to trade him. we chose neither, replaced him with minimums,a nd even traded thos said minimums for nothing but savings. Big difference alright
@wojnba ESPN Sources: Milwaukee Bucks PJ Tucker has agreed to a new deal. 1 year / Unlimited supply of Jordans / Yeezy's / Puma's / Adidas
The Bucks are a great regular season team. They don't care about their first round pick. There are 2 considerations you might have overlooked. First, their roster will be improved by the return of DiVicenzo. And second (and more importantly), Portis will be a free agent (assuming he turns down his meager player option). Wouldn't you agree that extending Portis is more important than extending Tucker?
I agree with this but what we did was unprecedented, Bucks have just won, they are not in the same boat. We barely lost and it was essentially due to a lack of depth as we did not have a replacement for CP3. We needed more depth and our new owner chose to let a core starter walk that also happened to be a glue guy. How he performed on any other team is irrelevant after that, his value was with us.
Well the difference is the Warriors play basketball in one of the most valuable plots of land in the US - it's like owning blocks of downtown Manhattan. You have options other cities/teams don't have when you have that kind of asset in such an insanely expensive city. It's kind of like when the uber rich are touting the health benefits of fresh, locally sourced, farm to table food prepared by top chefs - it's a luxury in viewpoint the rich can afford to have because they don't have to choose between grass fed proteins and having lights and water services. ...but you do touch on I think an important point here that ties together the Rockets, Warriors, and now the Bucks which is the value of "leadership" on the roster. It doesn't show up on a stat line and while letting Ariza walk had disastrous repercussions for Houston's "team ceiling", it was the better statistical move for Houston in terms of his part to the whole. Ariza was not good in his post Rockets trips but to CP's point, team dynamics are an entirely different intangible animal. I think with PJ, you are seeing a similar scenario - great locker room leader, and a serviceable player in spurts BUT I think the average analyst would be correct in stating PJ doesn't belong as a key rotational player on 95% of teams because he statistically doesn't contribute enough even though his effect is that of a ceiling raiser with this Bucks team. The Warriors had a similar decision to make with Iggy late in his career and it allowed them to win many titles but to the point earlier - they were in a position where they still had massive profits despite setting luxury tax bill records so they could afford to eat that opportunity cost in a way that maybe Milwaukee has to think twice about....anyway, something to consider - the value of the individual contributor vs the value of the individual in relation to the whole. I see this same discussion play out in business contexts daily - it's very much wrapped into a philosophical approach that you could call Western vs Eastern schools of thinking and the answer lies somewhere in the middle of both.
100 percent, more important...absolutely, but I think they are both important. Thats what I'm saying, this is a billionaires league, not the nba of the 90s, you can't win on budget anymore. Cavs had to over pay for JR, Tristan, Klove....Raptors doled out 50 million for an aging marc gasol...its not easy to add talent, you have to be opportunistic and willing to pay a premium bc championships windows are small, just like warriors are doing or many other teams taht are gong all in like Clippers, lakers, nuggets, JAzz, Nets, Philly, bucks...they are all speending big and anything can happen as we saw So yea, I think they will need to replace both. Dicenzo will be a huge help, btu so will depth. They won this year, but it was a hair close. Other teams will be healthy next year, and theyll need all the depth. If their committed to Giannis, they will resign both and take that depth. Its very very hard to quantify what PJ tucker brought to the team beyond his stats, hes known as a heart and soul type of guy, locker room veteran that has enough league respect to talk straight to anyone. So you can say yea its a priority, but this league just is getting more and more expensive. I'd wager they will resign both. and its important to do so, and maybe they can suffer the cost for a couple years in between the crazy nba tv money about to come and keep rolling To add to that, we were also a great reg season team at that time. Instead we traded a first with brandon knights contract to get under that tax...we also cut Daniel House during mid season for 2 months for tax reasons...we also traded James ennis, our first Ariza replacement, who was in the rotation...for tax and no players in return.... see the difference on how 'contenders' acted differently?
That was also by comeptence of warrios planning and vision. They privately funded taht arena. remember their owner is worth less than half of ours, but if you're smart with investors or managing it you can make it profitable. Now with the new tv dela, more money will be involved. Remmeber tilman has said he doesnt want a minority owner out of pride, hes bragged about not needing one and denying many offers, then he cheaps out. ITs just a masterful sign of ego above all and its hard to route for when only one man wins in this case and it ain't the rockets. Don't forget, okc after cheaping on harden ended up paying 10s of milliosn in tax for years...they are a small market...the nba is only getting more expensive, teh par to win is only getting more expsneive. So the small market thing doesn't fly, just like the bucks. I agree with you, team dynamics, leadership are intangible. We can value cp3 in phoenix from his stats, but how to quantify the off court influence he had on ayton? ayton said he as teh best thing to happen to his career ebcause of how he pushed him and had the clout to do this. Very few people have that respect adn voice as some certain veterans and as Paul said, Ariza was teh glue being hardens best friend and a friend to him so he made the cohesion work PJ may not statistically contribute, but I don't think many coaches keep playing him 30 minutes while seeing him getting 0. The physicality, energy, grit, the voice on the court, the understanding the role are all things we can't quantify that contribute to the flow and energy of the team. I agree the answer isn't always simple, usually in real life its more grey than black or white. At the same time with ariza, it was a one year deal. thats it, one year of that payment, then we're off the books, we can trade it, keep the contrat in play, many things. we chocse to ignore it, replace with minimimum contracts and then furthermore even trade or cut those guys while in rotation. So i think we played it the worst and frankly I think Giannis, or any superstar would leave that situation and not waist a short fleeting nba career that is the culmination of their legacy and life work for a guy trying to save money AND blame you afterwards. Theres a reason we're in clean up mode bc our reptuation is to ****. IF the fans don't know it, the agents sure do. Sarver changed, people change, hopefully tilman can
