Report: Bucks Waive Sean Kilpatrick, Sign Shabazz Muhammad

According to a report by Adrian Wojnarowski, the Milwaukee Bucks are waiving guard Sean Kilpatrick and picking up the recently bought out Shabazz Muhammad from the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The news comes just several hours after Woj reported that Muhammad agreed to a contract buyout “in hopes of signing with a playoff contender.” The phrasing of that is peculiar particularly because Minnesota was already a playoff contender. But I digress.

Presumably, this move was made to give Milwaukee additional forward depth, a position that’s been bolstered by Jabari Parker’s return but has been hampered by the loss of Mirza Teletovic to his pulmonary emboli.

In his 23 games with the Bucks, Kilpatrick averaged four points an appearance in his nearly nine minutes per game. With Malcolm Brogdon and Matthew Dellavedova out for this recent period, he’s provided some necessary guard help off the bench. He shot below 30% from three with a pretty meh 45.7% effective field goal percentage, but his quick trigger and willingness to head towards the rim was an upgrade over Rashad Vaughn. It appears the Bucks tried to do him a solid too.

As for the new arrival, Muhammad has been mostly trash this entire year for the Timberwolves. He went into the offseason expecting to sign a lucrative contract, but was left standing as summer faded and settled for just a 2-year, $3.3 million dollar deal. Muhammad is now the second player, after Zeller, that the Bucks have acquired who will be an incredibly cheap contract on the books for next year. The real question is whether Muhammad is even worth taking a cheap flier on. In just a shade under 10 minutes per game he’s shooting a career-low 40.5% effective field goal percentage, he’s a career 31.7% shooter from deep on minimal volume and the Wolves are an incredible -135 in the only 301 minutes he’s played this year! Whatever potential Muhammad may have had likely passed him by several years ago. Kilpatrick was expendable, but a non-shooter who needs the ball in his hands and is stuck behind three of Milwaukee’s core in Giannis, Middleton and Parker seems fairly useless. We’ll see if any sort of miracle renaissance is possible.