Bucks Owner Marc Lasry: “It’s Hard To Take Embiid”

And the NBA draft wheel just keeps on spinning. After presumptive number one pick Joel Embiid suffered a stress fracture of the navicular bone in his right foot, one anonymous general manager said that “you can’t use a top five pick” on the Kansas big man. Now, just three days before the draft, comes word that Milwaukee Bucks owner Marc Lasry agrees with that take.

The news is courtesy of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s Marc Gardner. The Bucks hold the second overall pick in the draft.

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Yikes.

Milwaukee won a league-worst 15 games last season and doesn’t have a surefire building block on its roster apart from Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Bucks are going nowhere next season even in a weak Eastern Conference. That Lasry would put enough emphasis on immediate impact versus long-term payoff as to rule out Embiid entirely is mind-boggling. Teams like Milwaukee need superstars, and Embiid, injuries and all, might have a better chance of any prospect in this draft to reach that threshold.

Not taking a player with health concerns like Embiid’s is one thing; informing the league that your team has already decided against selecting him is another entirely. What little leverage the Bucks have has been further diminished by Lasry’s comments. What is Milwaukee gaining here? We’re as confused as you are.

Onto Thursday night. The draft can’t get here soon enough.

Should the Bucks pass on Embiid?

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