After today, Milwaukee has calls to make on Ryan Rollins and Bobby Portis
Yes, the trade deadline may have passed several weeks ago, but the Bucks’ roster is still not yet set for the remainder of the season. Their moves earlier this month put them at 14 players on standard contracts, the league-mandated minimum, one below the 15-man limit. While that means they aren’t actually required to do anything, there are two key moves Milwaukee has to make after tonight’s game concludes. One we knew about and have discussed for a month or two now, the other popped up a week ago today when we were all surprised by Bobby Portis getting suspended.
Before we dive in, though, a few important things to remember. March 1 is an important deadline around the league, as players who are waived by 11:59 p.m. on Saturday evening retain their postseason eligibility if they change teams. Those players can sign elsewhere at any point before the end of the regular season, so there’s nothing preventing a team like the Bucks keeping their 15th roster spot open until April and signing someone on April 13th. That guy would be able to appear in the playoffs.
As happens every year after the trade deadline, players have already been bought out of their contracts and hit free agency, inking rest-of-season minimum deals with other franchises. For the Bucks, though, is that as a team above the first apron (just like the Celtics, Knicks, Lakers, Nuggets, Suns, and Wolves), they can’t sign anyone whose salary was more than the non-taxpayer midlevel exception before being waived. So a player who currently is or previously was making more than $12.8m and is bought out cannot be a Buck this season.
The good news is that even though the Bucks are hard-capped at the second apron, they have about $3.5m in breathing room beneath it, which is plenty of room to accommodate multiple rest-of-season minimum contracts. Whatever they decide in regards to the two decisions I mentioned above could even result in another move needing to be made by next Tuesday. Let’s begin with the initial dominos that could fall in the days ahead…
Moving Bobby Portis to the suspended list, opening a second roster spot
After being suspended for taking a banned medication, Portis won’t be eligible to play until April 8 against the Timberwolves with his 25-game suspension. But once five games have elapsed of any suspension, teams can move the suspended player to the suspended list, which doesn’t count toward the 15-man in-season standard roster limit. Just like that, the Bucks will have an open roster spot beginning on Saturday versus the Mavs.
Milwaukee also received a tax variance credit of $1.4m due to Portis’ suspension, which is half of what he gives up while suspended (though his salary doesn’t come off the Bucks’ books). Before the deadline, they were on track to pay over $74m in luxury tax penalties, but now that figure is around $29.5m after that credit and a net decrease of around $4.7m in salary due to Milwaukee’s deadline moves. Those moved them down two tax brackets; previously, they were paying a $4.75 tax per each dollar spent, now they pay $3.50.
If Milwaukee were to sign someone to a rest-of-season contract that fills this possible opening, they’d have to waive someone (Chris Livingston?) once Portis is eligible to return. Such a contract signed on March 1st would be about $528k with another $1.8m in associated tax penalties added to the Bucks’ projected luxury tax bill at the end of the year, and they could punt the release doing this would necessitate down the road when Portis is back in early April. It would be wise to make use of the extra player Portis’ suspension affords the team during that interregnum. They could also cycle 10-day contracts for a while, perhaps even the entirety of that period. For a player who has more than two years of NBA experience, each 10-day amounts to a $120k cap hit for the Bucks, and about $420k added to their tax bill. But players can only sign up to two 10-day deals with the same team; after that, said team would have to sign them to a rest-of-season deal.
So, who could they sign? While they may opt for another big man, the market isn’t great right now. Former Buck Christian Wood makes a lot of sense given his scoring ability and similarities to Portis, but he hasn’t played this season after undergoing left knee surgery in September, the second procedure he’s had on that joint. The most recent intel from The Athletic’s Jovan Buha stating he’ll be back “soon” is from January 8th. Other center-capable players that are free agents and have appeared in an NBA game this year are Mo Bamba, Colin Castleton, Pete Nance, and Adama Sanogo. The latter three are also eligible for two-way contracts—more on that below.
But a buyout guy might not be the best idea here, since this second roster spot that Milwaukee could potentially open only exists until Portis returns. The first one existed before, however, and its related decision-making process isn’t really changed by Portis’ suspension. That decision is…
Converting Ryan Rollins to a standard contract
Rollins is just about at the end of his two-way contract eligibility. He’s had productive stretches in his first full season with Milwaukee, averaging 4.9 PPG on .451/,348/,833 shooting with solid defense. Since the acquisition of Kevin Porter Jr., though, he’s lost his backup point guard role and has found himself out of the rotation, spare games against Minnesota and Washington when Damian Lillard sat out. That’s coincided with a fall in accuracy: since New Year’s, he’s making only 26.8% of his threes.
Though Rollins has appeared in 39 contests, any games where he is on the active roster count toward the 50-game two-way limit. That means DNP-CDs (like he logged on Tuesday) add onto that 39-game total. With 10 of those this season, he’s at 49, so if he is active for tonight’s faceoff with Denver, he will no longer be eligible to appear in NBA games beginning on Friday. Also, as a two-way player, he remains ineligible to play in the postseason. Essentially, if he’s not promoted to the standard roster after tonight, he can’t suit up for another game as a Buck this year.
Now, there are legitimate business reasons for not converting Rollins sooner. For one, a minimum contract he’d sign has a prorated rest-of-season salary. The closer teams are to the end of the season before signing someone, the less they pay, amounting to about $12k per day for a veteran’s minimum deal, which is what Rollins qualifies for. For a team paying repeater tax penalties like Milwaukee, it amounts to more like $42k per day. By using up all of Rollins’ two-way eligibility before converting him, the Bucks avoided paying a few hundred grand unnecessarily: it’s not as if he was unable to play because they were being cheap.
If Rollins is converted tomorrow, his rest-of-season salary would be that same $528k and $1.8m in tax penalties I mentioned above. While the Bucks could technically offer him part of their taxpayer midlevel exception (they have access to $3.5 of its $5.2m value) since they’re now below the second apron, a contract signed with the MLE is limited to two seasons no matter the salary, including this one. Since the Bucks don’t have cap room, their only other option is to use the minimum salary exception to sign Rollins, which has the same length limitations as an MLE contract, so it simply amounts to a difference in pay. In either instance, next year could be a team option.
The Bucks do have until the last day of the regular season (April 13) to convert any two-way player to a standard deal, thus making them eligible for the playoffs. In theory, they could send Rollins to Oshkosh and play out the rest of the NBA calendar with the Wisconsin Herd, whose G League schedule ends on March 29th. That would save them the most money but would mean around six weeks without seeing a big-league floor, and I doubt this is the path they’ll take.
Another potential two-way contract
If Rollins is converted in the next day or two, the Bucks have a very short time to fill the resulting two-way slot they’d open by promoting him to the 15-man standard roster. The last day that teams may sign two-way contracts this season is March 4th. When Rollins was added last February, Milwaukee gave him a two-year two-way contract, and they may well opt for that same length with whomever they’d theoretically sign, given there are only 24 more chances for them to see an NBA court in 2024–25. One of those big men above might make sense, as would plenty of guys currently toiling away in the G League.
It’s very likely the Bucks make at least one roster move in the coming days, perhaps two. Still, they’re not facing any sort of imminent deadline on these, but after tonight, they can’t play Rollins until they make the decision on him. While it’s possible that decision could dovetail with the open roster spot resulting from moving Portis to the suspended list to keep their options open, I think they’ll treat them independently. They could save some money by delaying their decision on Rollins a few days, or leaving the potential extra roster spot open for weeks at a time between 10-day contracts, the latter of which gives them more flexibility. We’ll update you accordingly based on what they elect to do first.