We can only assume there’s more to this story than simply Alexander not playing well enough. Hammond and Skiles aren’t going to publicly admit they blew that pick without good reason.

He struggled as a rook, sure, but lots of lottery picks do and the Bucks had said he was a project from the start. So the fact that they’d essentially give up on him tells you there must be off-court and/or practice issues. Which is also a bit weird given he’s always been known as a hard worker—and there was plenty of talk about how much time he put in this summer to prove people wrong. I’d assume it mostly has to do with his inability to pick up schemes and do what the coaches tell him, but that’s just me speculating.

What’s also disappointing is that if Alexander does come back and play well (or, you know, better), then he’s probably not going to want to come back anyway. Odds are the Bucks won’t be missing out on a whole lot, but this is still a very unusual thing to see.