Re-signing Middleton and Lopez keeps the Bucks on championship path

In a harried game of musical chairs in NBA free agency – both from teams looking to shed salary and players looking to find new homes – the Milwaukee Bucks and a couple of core players elected to stand off to the side and hum The Raconteurs’ “Steady, as She Goes.”

That’s not to say Khris Middleton and Brook Lopez electing to re-sign were foregone conclusions – they earned the right to test unrestricted free agency – but rather than flirt with rebuilding teams with unknown futures, the pair returned to what they know: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jrue Holiday and a chance to win the 2023-24 NBA championship.

The Bucks as an organization were in the same boat, too.

Technically, the new ownership construct and general manager Jon Horst could have bid adieu to a three-time all-star and Olympic gold medalist (Middleton) and a two-time all-defensive team center (Lopez) and used their limited cap space to … sign a couple players who frankly aren’t as good.

The point of this summer, and the next one at least, are to maximize the remaining time left on Antetokounmpo’s two team-controlled seasons.

Losing Middleton and/or Lopez would have been near disastrous in that regard.

The mechanics of the salary cap just simply would not allow the team to find players that are as good as those two. Then, at best, the team would be scrambling to perhaps trade a key rotation player along with what little youthful resources and draft capital it has – while being in a clear position of weakness to deal.

So, while the new collective bargaining agreement’s roster-building restrictions for high-salaried teams will make things hard for the Bucks going forward, they’re still a favorite to win the Eastern Conference.

There is comfort in familiarity – but thinking that comfort led to complacency here would be wrong.

The Bucks won 58 games last season, despite the fact Antetokounmpo missed 19 games (and departed early in two more) and Middleton missed 49. Lopez, arguably, had his best season in seven years.

Hiring a new head coach Adrian Griffin (with a largely new assistant staff) is still a major change, so even with a a familiar top-half of the roster the team will still look different this season.

With that, the Bucks are paying for how they believe Middleton and Lopez will perform into their mid-to-late 30s under Griffin – not what they’ve already done. But the track record for solid veterans who are so well known makes it a safer bet.

The natural decline of all-star level players tends to be a bit more graded, and that is countered with the belief Antetokounmpo’s game is still ascending. It’s a Cartesian Graph that still has the Bucks’ origin near the top of the league.

There is risk, too, of course.

Middleton did miss the remainder of the 2022 playoffs with a left knee injury, then missed 49 games with left wrist surgery and a right knee injury that required surgery. Lopez has been an ironman, but his 2021 back surgery isn’t that far in the rearview.

But it’s a renewal of vows between the players and team, and the marriage has been unequivocally successful the last five years. The individual accolades, the 2020-21 NBA championship, the consistent winning, are all hard to come by in this league.

Just look at all the uncoupling in search of “new” and “better,” the last year or so, from Brooklyn to Philadelphia to Phoenix to Dallas to Los Angeles to Portland.

The unknown is just that. It would be new. It could be fun. Yet Middleton and Lopez are shrewd enough to know such change could also make the twilight of their careers a bit less illustrious than continuing to orbit a Grecian sun.

And the organization can balance the change in coaching with the continuity of a proven, veteran and highly-skilled roster while giving Antetokounmpo more reasons to entertain signing his own extension in the fall.

Sometimes, “Steady, as She Goes” is the best track to put on repeat.