Tom Pelissero’s Top Takeaways from the NBA Draft’s 1st Round

An NFL insider spent the morning after the NBA Draft talking pro basketball, and Tom Pelissero's read on the night was sharp. The headline was Giannis Antetokounmpo landing in Miami, a deal Pelissero called the single focal point of media and fan attention between now and next June. You do not trade for Giannis, he noted, unless you believe you are immediately the frontrunner in the Eastern Conference and a real title threat.

The more interesting story, to Pelissero, was the other side of the ledger. Milwaukee had two trade packages in front of it, and rather than take Jaylen Brown, a 30-points-a-game scorer in his prime, the Bucks took a mishmash of role players plus a haul of picks. The message that sent was unmistakable. "We are going all in now on shooting," Pelissero said.

He laid out the logic. Giannis has never been a three-point threat and leads the league every year in two-point field goals, yet Milwaukee was already one of the best three-point shooting teams in the NBA because defenses collapse on him and he kicks it out. Now the Bucks have traded for volume shooter Tyler Herro, added another well-rounded guard at No. 10, and at No. 13 took Nate Ament out of Tennessee, a 6-foot-10 shooter whose ceiling comp, Pelissero conceded with a laugh, runs as high as Kevin Durant. In an East where the Knicks bully teams physically and Miami now pairs Giannis with Bam Adebayo, Milwaukee is betting it can simply outshoot everyone.

The Jaylen Brown situation drew Pelissero's best work. Brown was offered in the Giannis package and was not moved on night one, prompting Celtics basketball boss Brad Stevens to insist Brown is "a big part of us" and stress how "valued" he has always been. Pelissero put on his executive translator. Stevens leaning on the word valued, he argued, was a signal: do not come in with a lowball offer expecting Boston to give Brown away.

Still, Pelissero would not bet on Brown retiring in green. "Hard to imagine that's anything other than Brad Stevens going, I kind of have had my leverage punctured here by everything playing out publicly," he said. He expects real news within a week, with decisions looming through free agency, training camp and the February deadline. The cause, in his view, is the modern apron era, where a title buys a team only a couple of years before the bills come due.

Pelissero also flagged Memphis. The Grizzlies took Cameron Boozer at No. 3, then traded back repeatedly to amass five second-round picks. As a fan, he said, that is the last thing you want to hear, because it usually means a team plans to draft a bunch of 18-year-old European prospects and hope one of them turns into Nikola Jokic. "If I'm Cameron Boozer sitting there watching this play out," Pelissero said, "I'm getting a little bit nervous here." Take five shots if you are taking a shot, he allowed, but know the odds on those lottery tickets.