Earlier this week, I took a look at Brook Lopez’s upcoming free agent market, and we asked whether or not you thought the Bucks should retain him on a smaller deal the next day. The results are in, and while a sizeable chunk of respondents want to keep him around on a discount from his previous $23m salary, the majority wants to move on:
I can understand wanting to revamp the frontcourt a bit and installing a new starter at the five, especially given how ineffective Lopez was in this year’s Pacers series. But he had a very good regular season, and as I said Monday, I think keeping him around in that $6–9m range might work out well. I don’t advocate for just making him the starter again necessarily, and I certainly think he should be more like a 20 MPG guy instead of 30+, but he’s still good in smaller doses and more importantly, that’s a tradeable contract.
Elsewhere among the Milwaukee center corps, Jericho Sims is also an unrestricted free agent, and most voters want him to stick around:
We’ll be taking a closer look at Sims’ market in the weeks ahead, but as mentioned, the Bucks have Bird rights on him and are thus in pole position to keep him. While he would certainly like a raise on his minimum-level contract, I’m not entirely sure he’d get one on the open market, being such a limited player offensively, at least as a scorer. Maybe he could get part of the taxpayer midlevel exception from many teams, but he’d also be buried on the depth chart in some of those places. Especially if Lopez isn’t returning, Sims seems primed for a bigger role next year, and Doc Rivers also seems keen on playing him, so maybe he’ll take whatever offer the Bucks feel comfortable extending.
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