With no first-round pick, the Milwaukee Bucks are hard-pressed to find possible prospects

The Milwaukee Bucks will be picking late in the upcoming NBA draft.

© Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

The NBA Draft is just around the corner but with only one pick, the Milwaukee Bucks are not expected to make a huge splash in the proceedings.

Due to the P.J. Tucker trade in 2021, Milwaukee has no first-round pick, and what they have is just the No. 58 pick in the second round.

Milwaukee will be picking last in the upcoming draft, as there will be only 58 picks this year after Chicago and New Orleans forfeited their second-round picks for violating free agency rules.

This year’s NBA draft will be headlined by presumptive No. 1 Victor Wembanyama. The San Antonio Spurs own the No. 1 pick.

Unfamiliar territory

Milwaukee will not be very much involved in this year’s draft, which is very different compared to the previous years.

Since John Horst took over as general manager in 2017, Milwaukee made three first-round picks that the team has kept and three others that were part of previous transactions.

Even without a first-round pick, Horst said he and vice president of global scouting Ryan Hoover are still busy gathering information on this year’s eligible prospects.

“One of their big responsibilities – it’s not a seasonal responsibility, it’s an ongoing, fluid responsibility – is to be prepared globally, globally geographically but just globally across the board for all scenarios,” Horst said in a report by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Staying ready

While acquiring a first-round pick is a long shot, Horst said the Bucks have to be ready for any possible transactions that may occur during the draft.

“It’s not unforeseeable that we could acquire a first-round pick in some sort of deal that we execute prior to or at the draft, and they have to be ready for that. We obviously possess a pick at the end of the second round. We have to be ready for that. But also, the trades and things that happen from a personnel, an NBA personnel standpoint, be ready for that,” Horst said.

Because of previous deals for Jrue Holiday and Tucker, the Bucks did not have a first-round pick in 2021 and this year. They also do not control their own pick again until 2028.

The Bucks will have first-round picks in 2024 and 2026, but the Pelicans own the right to swap those picks, the report added.

“I think kind of in the world we’ve lived in for the last six, seven years and hopefully going forward for another 10 years, the process is kind of the same,” Horst said. “You’ve got to be ready for kind of whatever comes your way, be ready for what you have obviously, but there will be a lot of different scenarios that present themselves. I think we’ve done an incredible job of that. We’ve capitalized on trade transactions and kind of draft-day transactions year in and year out. Ryan’s group’s done a great job.”