The Milwaukee Bucks have been busy bees, and so far the most active up-and-coming young team heading into the off-season. Yesterday Yahoo Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski first reported that the Milwaukee Bucks have traded power forward Ersan Ilyasova to the Detroit Pistons for small forwards Caron Butler and Shawne Williams. Early Friday morning however, ESPN’s Marc Stein offered some more insight about the Bucks additional future plans.
“League sources say the Bucks want a proven center in free agency if they can score one, and have pinpointed two kinds of former All-Stars — Dallas’ Tyson Chandler and Brooklyn’s Brook Lopez — as targets for the top of their wish list.
Bucks coach Jason Kidd knows both of them well, having played alongside Chandler in both Dallas and New York and having coached Lopez with theNets. And word is that Milwaukee intends to chase both hard come July 1 in hopes of emerging as a serious contender for at least one of them.”
In that SLL report, ESPN sources say Bucks plan to pursue top centers in free agency and will chase Tyson Chandler & Brook Lopez speciically
— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) June 12, 2015
Stein also writes that the Bucks would be willing to jump in on the DeAndre Jordan sweepstakes, but notes that they’d only seriously do so if they thought they had a tangible chance at luring him to Milwaukee.
Lopez has a lot offensive upside, and it was reported last month the Bucks would have interest the 27-year-old center. While Lopez is expected to opt out for purely financial reasons, the Nets will reportedly stop at nothing to keep their leading scorer and rebounder, given the current makeup of their roster.
The main issue with this pursuit is that Tyson Chandler is getting old, 32, and Brook Lopez is constantly injured so if the Bucks are looking for a solid top NBA center, I don’t believe they are the answer. As long as Chandler’s contract isn’t too long he might be the addition I want to have on my team, it would be a great temporary fix but obviously they’d have to find a young center in the next 3 years for the long-term future.
