Milwaukee Bucks offseason preview

The 2014/15 Milwaukee Bucks were one of the biggest surprises in the NBA. After finishing 15-67 the previous year, the Bucks righted the ship and finished 41-41 even after losing the #2 overall pick, Jabari Parker to an ACL tear early in the year. But this past season, the Bucks took a step back and finished with a record of 33-49. There were some bright sports, most notably the development of the Bucks' big three - Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jabari Parker, and Khris Middleton - but the season was largely a disappointment. So where should the Bucks go from here?

One of the reason for the Bucks' struggles this season was the inability to shoot from beyond the 3 point arc. The Bucks 34.5% 3 point shooting was good for 22nd in the league. Apart from the shooting woes, the Bucks struggled defensively and their biggest free agent signing in years, Greg Monroe, did not fit in well with the rest of the young Bucks core.

The Bucks need to move on from Greg Monroe and find someone else to take over at that position. There are plenty of teams who could use someone with Monroe's skill set, just not the Bucks. Of course, Miles Plumlee came on strong at the end of last year, and seemed to develop good chemistry with Giannis who will be the team's point guard moving forward. However, I think he's a best suited for a role off the bench. His contract is up this year and he will be a restricted free agent, but if the Bucks can sign him to a reasonable deal - somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 years and 20 million, I'd be okay with him returning as a backup.

As for finding a starter, I think the Bucks should use their #10 pick in the draft on a center prospect like Jakob Poetel, Skal Labissiere, or Henry Ellenson - all of whom are expected to be taken anywhere from 5th to 15th. Of course this could all change if the Bucks get lucky in the NBA draft lottery and move up to a top 3 pick (sidenote - I detailed how the NBA lottery works last week if you missed it).

So with the Bucks picking up a center in the draft, and retaining Plumlee, that leaves us with the question of what to do with John Henson. This is where it gets fun - I think he would be a perfect fit for the Toronto Raptors. The Raptors could lose their rim protector Bismack Biyambo in the offseason and Henson could slide right in to that spot. In exchange for Henson the Bucks would receive Terrence Ross.

Ross is a 6-7 guard/forward who can defend and is a career 38% 3 point shooter - the type of player the Bucks desperately need. Henson is slated to begin the first of a 4 year 44 million dollar contract extension next season while Ross will begin the first of a 3 year 31.5 million contract extension. The money and cap hit is essentially the same on both sides, making this much more likely to become a reality. Both players are also young(24) and have yet to hit their prime. I think it's a deal worth looking into for the Bucks.

How does the NBA lottery work?

With the 2015-16 NBA regular season now in the books, it's time to look ahead at what comes next. For some teams, the NBA Playoffs are right around the corner, but for others, the focus will now turn to the NBA draft and the NBA draft lottery. The draft lottery can change a team's fortunes in a hurry with a bit of luck, but how exactly does it work?

In most sports organizations, like the NFL or MLB, the team with the worst regular season record is awarded with the 1st pick in the draft, while the team with the 2nd worst record is awarded the 2nd overall pick and so on and so forth. The NBA is different. In an effort to prevent teams from "tanking" and losing on purpose just to get a better draft pick, the NBA implemented the Draft Lottery in 1985.

The early version of the lottery featured random drawings of envelopes from a bin. Each envelope would feature one of the non-playoff teams on the inside. The first envelop drawn would receive the 1st pick in the draft, the second envelope drawn would receive the 2nd pick and on and on it goes. This system ensured that every non-playoff team would have an equal chance of winning the top pick in the draft. In 1987, the NBA amended the lottery to select only the first 3 picks in the draft. Starting with the 4th pick, teams would be placed in order of worst record to best - the usual draft format.

In 1990 the NBA implemented the weighted lottery which is still in use today. Ping-pong balls labeled 1-14 are placed in the lottery machine and mixed for 20 seconds before the 1st ball is drawn. After the first ball is drawn, the balls are mixed for another 10 seconds and the next ball is drawn. This process repeats itself until 4 balls have been drawn. The numbers on the balls drawn act as a combination, and in order drawn does not matter (i.e. a drawing of the 1-2-3-4 balls in that order is the same as drawing the 4-3-2-1 balls in that order). With 14 different balls, that leads to 1001 possible combinations. 1 combination is disregarded, while the other 1000 combinations are distributed to the 14 teams. In the chart below you can see how many combinations are awarded to each team.

Seed	Chances	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th	11th	12th	13th	14th
1	250	.250	.215	.178	.357
2	199	.199	.188	.171	.319	.123
3	156	.156	.157	.156	.226	.265	.040
4	119	.119	.126	.133	.099	.351	.160	.012
5	88	.088	.097	.107		.261	.360	.084	.004
6	63	.063	.071	.081			.439	.305	.040	.001
7	43	.043	.049	.058				.599	.232	.018	.000
8	28	.028	.033	.039					.724	.168	.008	.000
9	17	.017	.020	.024						.813	.122	.004	.000
10	11	.011	.013	.016							.870	.089	.002	.000
11	8	.008	.009	.012								.907	.063	.001	.000
12	7	.007	.008	.010									.935	.039	.000
13	6	.006	.007	.009										.960	.018
14	5	.005	.006	.007											.982

For example, if the NBA gave the Bucks a combination of 5-6-7-8 and the first numbers drawn matched that, the Bucks would receive the #1 overall pick (I can dream, can't I?) After the balls are drawn they are returned to the machine and another four balls are drawn. If the combination drawn matches one from a team that has already been chosen, or if it matches the combination that was thrown out, the balls are returned to the machine and the process is repeated until a winner is found.

After the No. 1 pick is determined, the same process is repeated for the second and third pick. Once the top-three picks are determined, the rest of the draft goes in reverse order in terms of win-loss record.

The actual draft lottery is not televised and as a result people throw around conspiracy theories about how "rigged" the NBA draft is. According to Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today Sports the opposite is true:

The NBA uses a representative from the accounting firm Ernst and Young to oversee the process, which is conducted just before the TV broadcast of the event. The ping-pong selection is done in a separate room, and inside the room are NBA officials, reporters, Denise Pelli from Ernst and Young, representatives from each of the 14 lottery teams, a ping-pong machine operator and timekeeper. The people in the room are sequestered without communication devices until the No. 1 pick is revealed on the TV broadcast. Here is a video from last year's lottery. The league uses a ping-pong machine designed by Smartplay International, which makes lottery equipment for clients all over the world. Smartplay weighs, measures and certifies the ping-pong balls before the drawing, according to the NBA.

 This season, the Bucks are tied with the Sacramento and Denver for the 8-9-10 slots with a 33-49 record. When a tie occurs, the chances among all teams are split evenly if possible. if there is an uneven amount of combinations to be distributed, a coin-flip determines who will get the extra combination. Typically the 8th team gets 28 combinations, the 9th pick 17 combinations, and the 10th pick 11 combinations. In this case the 8 and 9 teams will receive 19 combinations and the 10th team will receive 18 combinations.
According to Brewhoop, the league is expected to hold the coin toss for these picks sometime on Friday. Lets hope the Bucks can get lucky and get the 8th best chances of winning the lottery. The 2016 NBA draft lottery will occur on Tuesday, May 19th.

Will Nigel Hayes return for his senior season?

Now that the college basketball offseason is upon us, our attention turns to underclassmen that could potentially declare for the upcoming 2016 NBA draft. One of those underclassmen is Wisconsin Badgers star Nigel Hayes. Along with Bronson Koenig, Hayes was one of two starters to return this past season from the team that made it all the way to the national championship game last April. Without players like Frank Kaminsky, Sam Dekker, Josh Gasser and others, Hayes became the focal point of every opponents' defense and had to assume a bigger leadership role this year.
It was clear Hayes wasn't quite ready to become the focal point of the offense early on, but once Greg Gard took over and installed the swing offense, Hayes found his rhythm. He put up a respectable 15.7 ppg, 5.8 rpg, and 3.0 apg this past season but saw his efficiency dip. In 2014-15, Hayes shot 39.6% from behind the arc and hit 49.7% of his shots overall. This season his numbers dipped drastically - he shot 29.3% from behind the arc and only 36.8% overall. Whether this drop was caused by the defense keying in on him, or if he was just uncomfortable with his new shooting mechanics (He changed the over last summer to try and get his shot up quicker), I'm not sure, but his draft stock has taken a hit because of it. There is no room for an undersized power forward who can't shoot in today's NBA. His shooting troubles are why I think he will ultimately return to Madison for his senior season.
Let's walk through Hayes decision anyways. On Tuesday Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard announced that Hayes had submitted his name to the NBA draft advisory board. The NBA draft advisory board gives players feedback on where they can expected to be drafted and what they can improve on. Players have until April 11th to submit their name and feedback must be given by the 21st.
The next step, should Hayes decide to, is do declare for the NBA draft. A player can declare for the draft and still return to school, but only if they do not hire an agent. The deadline for declaring is April 24th. If Hayes doesn't declare by then, then one could assume he didn't hear what he wanted to from the NBA draft advisory board. I would expect him to declare and at least test the waters or push off making an actual decision until later - it is a pretty important decision after all.
If he does declare, then the NBA combine will follow on May 13-15. Typically only 60 players get invited to this event and if you don't get invited (Hayes might not) then you're probably better off returning to school and trying to raise your draft stock for the next year. Players have 10 days until after the combine to determine if they will actually declare for the NBA.
None of this is even taking into account was Hayes would rather do. If he returns to school and gets hurt, his draft stock could be even worse. Or maybe Hayes is okay with playing next season in the NBA development league or playing in Europe. He would get a paycheck going down either of those roads, and Nigel is no fan of the NCAA.
Ultimately, it's his decision and he has to make it. I don't think he gets drafted but If he wants to collect a paycheck and try and make it to the NBA through the D-league or Eurpoe I can't blame him. He could be a potential first round pick next year though, which is worth a lot more guaranteed money then playing in Europe or the D-League. As a Badger fan, I hope he chooses the latter option because next year's team could be special if Hayes returns.