Breaking Down Jon Horst's Draft Record
Inspecting the draft tenure of Milwaukee Bucks general manager Jon Horst
The 2022 NBA Draft is now two weeks away and hope springs eternal for every team. Every prospect is going to hit. All 30 teams were stupid for letting player X fall that far on draft night. It’s time to get ready for all of that noise and then some.
What role the Milwaukee Bucks will play in this draft cycle remains unknown. Under Bucks general manager Jon Horst, the draft has largely been irrelevant for a few reasons.
The Bucks haven’t used a first round pick since 2018 when they took Donte DiVincenzo with the 17th overall pick. And under Horst, the Bucks have chosen to keep their cards close to their vest by not disclosing any pre-draft workouts with prospects. Any info has largely come from the players themselves when doing rounds at the combine or meeting with beat reporters from other markets.
In turn, the Bucks have spent most of their attention retaining their own players and using any significant draft capital they have had for big trades such as Jrue Holiday or making a midseason move like P.J. Tucker, both of which led them to winning the 2021 NBA championship. Doing all that just to move their picks anyway has made this part of the NBA calendar just a footnote for all Bucks fans in recent years, though we’ll happily make that tradeoff for winning titles.
With that in mind, I wouldn’t blame you for being pessimistic and expecting the Bucks to punt on the 24th overall pick. I’m personally bracing for the impending Woj tweet that says the Bucks have traded their pick right when NBA commissioner Adam Silver walks off the stage following his opening remarks on draft night.
Nevertheless, I’ve slowly seen Bucks fans be the Wile E. Coyote to Horst’s roadrunner with the draft drawing closer and in all honesty, there isn’t a better time for the Bucks to add a developing prospect to inject some youth into their veteran-laden roster. While it’s always fun to draw favorites and hope that they will be available at 24, I find the far more interesting question is what, if anything, stands out among Horst’s past draft picks.
This is Horst’s fifth full draft cycle as GM and the age of the players Horst has taken immediately stands out. Just look at the ages of the players at the time of when they were drafted and the spots they were taken.
D.J. Wilson, 21 years old, at 17th overall in 2017
Sterling Brown, 22 years old, at 48th overall in 2017 (Acquired from the Philadelphia 76ers)
Donte DiVincenzo, 21 years old, at 17th overall in 2018
Jordan Nwora, 22 years old, at 45th overall in 2020 (Acquired from the Orlando Magic)
Sam Merrill, 25 years old, at 60th overall in 2020 (Acquired as part of the four-team trade that helped the Bucks land Holiday)
Sandro Mamukelashvili, 22 years old, at 54th overall in 2021
Georgios Kalaitzakis, 22 years old, at 60th overall in 2021 (Acquired from the Indiana Pacers)
Merrill was notably the oldest prospect of his draft class, but it’s clear that age and experience has played a factor in Horst’s picks, with the average age of said picks being 22.1 years old. The context is key behind those picks, with many of them coming in the second round.
More importantly, all but Brown and DiVincenzo had largely struggled to break through and find consistent minutes while in Milwaukee under the likes of Jason Kidd, Joe Prunty, and currently, Mike Budenholzer. The idea of rolling the dice with players who may look to contribute right away is that they have to earn the coach’s trust consistently to do that on a regular basis. So far, that just hasn’t been the case.
As far as the first round picks the Bucks have made under Horst, you can draw some parallels between DiVincenzo and Wilson. Both were buoyed by strong runs in the NCAA Tournament as redshirt sophomores, with DiVincenzo’s Villanova squad winning it all in 2018. A strong run at the combine both in testing and in the scrimmages further bolstered DiVincenzo’s case to make his run into the draft that year.
Looking back, Wilson’s case was much more of a dice roll due to having suffered a quad injury during a pre-draft workout with the San Antonio Spurs that limited him to interviews and taking part in measurements, all of which knocked him out of participating in the combine entirely. Wilson told reporters at that year’s combine that he would only enter the draft if he was given an assurance of being a first rounder. More than a month later, the Bucks tabbed Wilson with the 17th overall pick, six days after Horst had been hired as the team’s new GM following the departure of John Hammond.
The fact that both Wilson and DiVincenzo came from pro-ready programs helmed by coaches like John Beilein and Jay Wright certainly can’t go unnoticed as well. Both Michigan and Villanova have churned out a number of prospects that were taken in the draft over the last decade (11 for Michigan under Beilein, 9 and counting for Villanova under Wright).
The known quantities that Wilson and DiVincenzo were coming from schools in ‘Power 5’ conferences are key here when it comes to whoever the Bucks are targeting at 24. The landscape has drastically changed since they last made a first round pick that they kept. Programs like the G League Ignite and Overtime Elite didn’t exist yet four years ago and some players such as Jaden Hardy and MarJon Beauchamp from the Ignite could be well within range at 24. That is, if the Bucks use the pick at all. (Should be worth mentioning that the Wisconsin Herd did host the G League Ignite for an exhibition game back in February).
With such a limited record of worthwhile selections, trying to size up Horst’s tendencies in prospects is a black box nearly five years into his reign. We should expect to hear the mantra of ‘dribble, pass, shoot’ and maybe even a shoutout to ‘Bucks DNA’ whenever Horst holds one of his few press conferences with the media before the draft. But what he and the Bucks value highly in prospects and through the draft process under his watch is still much of a mystery.
We have two weeks left to theorize until draft night. Proceed with cautious optimism.