Why the Milwaukee Bucks Drafted Brayden Burries

The Greek Freak ain't walking through that door.

Milwaukee has officially moved onto a new era of Bucks basketball.

With two 2026 lottery picks in hand entering Draft Night after The Giannis Trade, what would Milwaukee decide to do next?

With the 10th pick, the Bucks selected Brayden Burries out of Arizona.

With the 13th pick, Milwaukee selected Nate Ament, the tall ball-handling help-side shot-blocking promising jump shooter out of Tennessee.

So, why did the Bucks decide to draft Burries with the 10th pick?

on Brayden Burries' upside as an All-Around talent:

"So often we put caps on good basketball players because they seemingly won't have (upside)...

I just think smart basketball players figure it out." - @DParkOK

𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐥 from @beyondtheRK pic.twitter.com/EI6D1jjICC
— Swish Theory (@SwishTheory) June 3, 2026

Milwaukee Bucks Draft Profile: Brayden Burries

Burries walks — Jun 23, 2026; New York, NY, USA; The tenth pick in the 2026 NBA draft, Arizona guard Brayden Burries after he was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks at Barclays Center. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-Imagn Images | Brad Penner-Imagn Images

Burries is one of the most complete prospects in the class, offering a variety of skillsets that makes him versatile and scalable on both ends of the floor.

His defense allows him to bring strength, size, and agility to the backcourt, where he will switch 1-3 on the perimeter with ease, and likely even be a pest a point-of-attack. While Burries might not be as impactful as some of the other highly elite defenders in this class, Burries projects to be a very good if not great defender himself; if his individual defense isn't his calling card, his defensive versatility to be good guarding multiple positions is that specialty.

His offense has shown on-ball team-first creation as the lead option early in his high school development to being more of a scorer and off-ball connector in college, but he showed he can do it all in the moments his team needs him to, whether that's score, shoot, or pass. Burries is one of those winning players focused on doing whatever it takes for his team to win, and is so skilled offensively, he can make decisions and execute them as a team's creator, scorer, and play-finisher at any time.

Burries is viewed by some as a false ceiling prospect, where critics say 'he has a low floor because he's so good at so many things, but not clearly elite at any specific one'. I'd argue his versatility is that elite trait, his role malleability to step into any lineup as the 1-3 and fill a variety of roles on both ends to good-to-great impact is what makes his game so valuable and worthy of a lottery pick; he can play with anyone, stay on the floor in the playoffs, and impact winning at a high level as a potential starter.

This type of player might have a high floor as a high-end starter on a winning team; but if he puts it all together as a 3pt shooter or scoring creator for his team on top of the positive defense he brings, Burries could level up his sum of its parts into an All-D type two-way star or even All-Star.

While Burries was one of the best options on the Bucks big board even if Milwaukee had kept Giannis, it still makes just as much sense to draft Burries whether Antetokounmpo is here or not as long as you believe Burries is a winning basketball player going forward, which most teams valued him as in this range and clearly the Bucks did as well.

Top-5 NBA Draft prospects via PRISM

2025:
1. Flagg
2. Knueppel
3. Harper
4. Edgecombe
5. Murray-Boyles

2026:
1. Boozer
2. Dybantsa
3. Wagler
4. Flemings
5. Burries

"Pretty predictive last year..."
- @BenRauman

𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐥 from @beyondtheRK pic.twitter.com/xZvRvJrMzj
— Swish Theory (@SwishTheory) June 29, 2026

When you add up the draft haul with Milwaukee's remaining roster, there's a few names that stand out if they remain on the team going forward as a potential core rotation to build around.

Burries, Ryan Rollins, and Kasparas Jakučionis as a 3-guard rotation offers complementary skillsets full of shooting, shot creation, playmaking, scoring for an NBA offense.

Ament, Kel'el Ware, and Ousmaine Dieng in the frontcourt offer dynamic forwards skilled enough to deserve to see what they can do with more touches and reps.

Other good basketball players with starry upside like Ebuka Okorie, Labaron Philon, or Dailyn Swain would have been popular Bucks draft targets for fans at either the 10th or the 13th picks, but betting on the two-way versatility of Burries is one of the safer bets in this Draft.

The Bucks are starting with a clean slate. Giannis leaving means the Bucks have a new window, hopefully a longer timeline, to collect talented good basketball players with starry potential, to build out a culture and style of play this organization wants to play going forward.

Milwaukee will never find another Giannis, because there will never be another Giannis; this one stings for Bucks Fans no matter how you slice it.

But you have to keep building as a franchise to give fans something to believe in for the future; that future will first be defined by the new faces attempting to fill shoes way too big to fill on anyone's own, a feeling that can only be filled by delivering something to fans by this time next year:

Hope.

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