If you go back through NBA drafts from years gone by, it is quite incredible to see how talent is distributed through the 60 picks in the two rounds. Players are picked based on their hype, upside, and usually, their college careers. The Milwaukee Bucks made an upside pick in 2013 when they drafted Giannis Antetokounmpo with the 15th pick.
In the following years, more generational talents were drafted by other teams using lower picks. One of the top picks in that year’s draft was Joel Embiid, who went to the Philadelphia 76ers with the 3rd overall pick. He was plagued with injuries and questions were heavily asked about his game, but he has proven his doubters wrong.
One of these three will be our MVP this season. But did you know that the Milwaukee Bucks could have feasibly had Jokic and Embiid on the same team alongside Giannis if they made different picks?
Honestly, the MVP debate is just kinda bumming me out. Instead of celebrating how great Embiid, Giannis and Jokic have been this year, it’s just turned into a festival of tearing them down. Seems like kind of a shit way to watch basketball and enjoy the NBA.
— Sam Vecenie (@Sam_Vecenie) April 8, 2022
We want to say that the Bucks obviously wouldn’t pick three bigs in two drafts as it is bad for roster construction, but it is exactly what they did. But instead of creating a team with a twin-tower lineup of Jokic and Embiid, with Antetokounmpo as the roaming two-way forward, the Bucks made some decisions hindsight would call poor.
In the 2014 draft, the Bucks picked ahead of the 76ers and selected highly-touted prospect Jabari Parker. Considering Parker was a big as well, the Bucks could have possibly taken Embiid instead of Jabari, as Giannis still used to play as a small forward at the time.
With their second-round pick, the Bucks selected another center/forward in Johnny O’Bryant III, five spots ahead of where Jokic would ultimately end up going.
This what-if Bucks lineup is ridiculous to think about. While the players wouldn’t have developed the way they have with their own teams, it would be a very interesting team with three near-seven footers that can do everything the team needs.
