Bucks Sign Pat Connaughton

AUGUST 1: The Bucks have officially signed Connaughton, the team announced today in a press release.

“Pat is a talented wing player with a tremendous work ethic and great character,” GM Jon Horst said in a statement. “We believe he will continue to grow and develop his skills working with Coach Bud and his staff. We are excited to welcome him to the Bucks organization and we know he will be a positive addition to our roster both on and off the court.”

JULY 27: The Bucks have reached an agreement to sign free agent swingman Pat Connaughton, reports Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). According to Charania (via Twitter), Connaughton will ink a two-year deal that will be worth slightly more than the minimum in each season. The first year will be guaranteed.

The Bucks are over the cap and used their entire bi-annual exception to sign Brook Lopez. However, the team still has a bit of its mid-level exception available. Having used $7MM of the $8.641MM exception to add Ersan Ilyasova, Milwaukee could give Connaughton a starting salary of $1.641MM, which would exceed his minimum salary of $1,567,007.

Assuming Connaughton gets the rest of the Bucks’ MLE and the maximum allowable 5% raise in year two, the two-year pact would be worth about $3.36MM.

Connaughton, 25, spent the last three seasons in Portland, carving out a regular rotation role in 2017/18. Appearing in all 82 games for the Blazers, the former Notre Dame standout averaged 5.4 PPG, 2.0 RPG, and 1.1 APG in 18.1 minutes per contest, with a .423/.352/.841 shooting line. However, he didn’t receive a qualifying offer from the team last month, making him an unrestricted free agent.

While he’s unlikely to see an increase in minutes in Milwaukee, Connaughton will provide solid depth for the Bucks. We had mentioned him earlier today in our look at the top free agent wings still available.

Once Connaughton is officially under contract, the Bucks will have 14 players on guaranteed salaries, with Brandon Jennings and Tyler Zeller on non-guaranteed deals.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.