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Milwaukee Bucks first-round draft pick AJ Johnson a big swing for the future for a team with title hopes
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- Milwaukee Bucks first-round draft pick AJ Johnson a big swing for the future for a team with title hopes
Jon Horst has swung big again.
On paper, it probably will be years before the Milwaukee Bucks find out if their general manager connected. He believes strongly it won't take that long.
The Bucks held on to the No. 23 pick in the first round of the NBA draft on Wednesday night and took 19-year-old, 167-pound guard AJ Johnson out of Australia's National Basketball League. The slight teenager is 6-foot-5 and played just under eight minutes per game for the Illawarra Hawks .
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Johnson is also the second teenager the Bucks have picked in consecutive drafts after they selected Chris Livingston at No. 58 last year. Livingston played in 21 games for the Bucks last season as a rookie – and he had an NBA frame the moment he walked into Fiserv Forum.
Johnson will be 20 in December, and clearly needs work not only on his physical makeup but also a skillset that didn't get tested much through game play.
Milwaukee Bucks general manager Jon Horst speaks at a news conference after the first round of the 2024 NBA draft.
Horst smiled and refused to put a ceiling on Johnson – he wouldn't say if the guard would or wouldn't contribute immediately – and pushed back on the idea that this is a pick for many seasons down the line.
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"When you get in that part of the draft, the assessment we had to make was here's a handful of guys that are 'win now,' here's a handful of guys that maybe have a higher development curve or a longer runway," Horst said late Wednesday. "I think he's a combination of both."
The 2024-25 Bucks are a team that will be expected to contend for – and win – the NBA championship and Johnson is a player who in all reality will not be a huge factor in that journey should he sign with the team.
Horst said it is the intention to sign Johnson and have him on the roster, but it should be noted that until he does sign, the rights to him can be attached to a veteran player in a trade and it will not count as aggregated salaries.
(Currently Milwaukee is operating like a second apron team, which will not allow them to combine players in a trade – a penalty added to the most recent collective bargaining agreement to prevent high-spending teams like the Bucks from using pure financial might to acquire players.)
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Horst was part of the organization when the Bucks picked Brandon Jennings No. 10 in the 2009 draft after the point guard spent a year playing professionally in Italy.
Jennings, however, played nearly 20 minutes per game for Lottomatica Roma – and was coming into a team that needed him to start and make an impact. In an all-rookie campaign, Jennings started all 82 games in 2009-10 and averaged 15.5 points and 5.7 assists per game.
AJ Johnson was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks with the No. 23 pick.
This is clearly not the same situation.
But Horst recognized the elite speed Jennings had then, and noted that Johnson brings a similar trait to a roster that needs more of it.
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"He has, in my mind, and obviously our group's mind, a defined, elite skillset: speed and athleticism," Horst said of Johnson. "He is very quick. He is very shifty. He is very fluid. And he knows how to play. And so, I think when you have something that you can count on, it gives you a chance to get on the floor and gives you a chance to build from somewhere. So, he's not this super raw, kind of hope-to-build talent prospect, like a projection pick. There are things he already does that translates to our game.
"There's things he has to get better at and he'll work really hard at to play more and be more impactful. But to me, from the speed and athleticism, this pass-first mentality, and he can really score in-between, he can shoot it from three, he can finish at the rim. I think those are the things that will allow him to have a chance kind of now and going forward."
While this pick may not help the Bucks in a major way this season, they are a team that is woefully short on future first-round draft picks thanks to the 2020 trade for Jrue Holiday and 2023 trade for Damian Lillard .
As it stands, their next first-round selection will be in 2026 – and that will be only after they swap positions with New Orleans as part of the Holiday deal.
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It's a bet on the development plan created by head coach Doc Rivers and a staff he is finalizing, along with the team's G League affiliate the Wisconsin Herd.
"I think part of it is looking at the growth and development of our current roster," Horst said of picking Johnson for a team that is looking to win now. "We saw AJ Green get on the floor last year, Andre Jackson got on the floor, MarJon ( Beauchamp ) got on the floor, Chris Livingston is having a great summer. We have a roster with young players that are growing and developing, and figure out how to contribute already on our team, a really good team. It doesn't mean that AJ Johnson can't do that. But, I feel very confident about the group that we have already, so that gives us an opportunity for him to grow and develop the right way, both physically and his game."
While Milwaukee is home to arguably the greatest player development story in NBA history with Giannis Antetokounmpo , the organization is not necessarily known for that since they picked him No. 15 in 2013.
Malcolm Brogdon (No. 36, 2016) and Donte DiVincenzo (No. 17, 2018) are probably the organization's best draft picks since then, but Brogdon played four years at Virginia and DiVincenzo three years at Villanova.
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Big swings on Rashad Vaughn (No. 17, 2015), Thon Maker (No. 10, 2016) and D.J. Wilson (No. 18, 2017) didn't connect. The jury is still out on Beauchamp, the No. 24 pick in the 2022 draft, but he has yet to get a foothold on a rotation spot under three different head coaches.
Without question, the Bucks needed some youth and athleticism on the team – and they have some now. But it will be a long time before they find out if it's a home run combination.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Bucks first-round NBA draft pick AJ Johnson a big swing for future
