Ranking the Roster 2018: Bledsoe and Brogdon, Neck and Neck!

We knew it was going to be close when we started this round of voting, but who knew that it would be this close? In the fight for avoid being named the fourth most valuable member of the Milwaukee Bucks, both Eric Bledsoe and Malcolm Brogdon earned 49% of the vote. We had to go down to raw totals, and found that Brogdon (241) just barely “beat out” Bledsoe (240) for the honor, meaning that the Marquee Three will take the top three spots in our annual roster ranking exercise.

Usually, this is the part of the post where I go through and explain my thoughts on the results. But today, I decided to post some of the comments I thought made the most sense to me (I would have also voted for Brogdon, if I didn’t recuse myself):

Riley Feldman

Sorry Malcolm, time to send you off now

Your low pay and general pending contract situation make any and all positive contributions of yours outsized in importance, but I’m unsure what to make of your health, still not sure what your ideal role on the team is, and cloudy on your value as an asset.

Please, though, have a career year in a contract season and prove me wrong. The team would be much elevated for it.

JSOnline Castaway 2.0

I’m voting Brogdon here, and it’s simple:

I don’t think he does stuff that is unique to the team. His talents are replaceable, either by another role player upping their game (Snell/DD/Brown) or by Middleton.

We simply don’t have another PG who can defend elite/quick PGs, or stress defenders with drives. (Granted, he also stresses fans with his drives as well.) Bledsoe has enough hard-to-find pseudo-elite attributes to make him valuable.

Scarcity + Talent = Value.

R983

I had to vote Brogdon

He’s assuredly valuable, being a good player on a small contract, versatile and smart, no danger of getting in trouble off the court, and still in his early prime.

But he expires soon (I know we have his RFA rights, but he will still be expensive, likely 15mil-ish imo). That may end up being somewhat close to what Bledsoe gets.

It’s easy to hate Bledsoe for his terrible team-killing collapse in the playoffs, but everyone seems to forget that Brogdon was as bad or worse against Boston.

Finally, Brogdon isn’t that much younger than Bledsoe and in my opinion, doesn’t have much improvement capacity left. He can change his play style, but he’s not getting much overall better, and Bledsoe is a much better player.

But to put everything into perspective over a longer timeframe, take a look at this.

retired janitor

2016-17 Brew Hoop Value Ranking Results

Two years ago, Delly took 5th place (Miles Plumlee was 8th). This year, our 5th person is ranked as the 99th best player by SI and makes near the vet minimum.

My friends, this is what I call progress.

Hear, hear!

But we still have to finish, technically, so I guess let’s get this bit out of the way...

2018 Brew Hoop Roster Ranking

1. ______________
2. ______________
3. Eric Bledsoe
4. Malcolm Brogdon
5. Brook Lopez
6. Ersan Ilyasova
7. Thon Maker
8. Donte DiVincenzo
9. Tony Snell
10. Sterling Brown
11. Pat Connaughton
12. Matthew Dellavedova
13. John Henson
14. Christian Wood
15. Tyler Zeller
16. Shabazz Muhammad
17. D.J. Wilson