IT having hip surgery; Lakers keen on talks

The Milwaukee Bucks have not been told that they shouldn’t show interest in Jimmy Butler. However, that doesn’t mean that Milwaukee will make an offer for Butler either.

Instead, the Bucks are more likely to show interest in acquiring Bradley Beal from the Phoenix Suns. That could be as part of a transaction that ultimately sends Butler to his desired destination of Phoenix, or it could be a separate deal entirely.

Milwaukee previously showed interest in Beal when he was still a member of the Washington Wizards. It’s unknown if the veteran guard would approve a trade to the Bucks or not. And, in order to trade for Beal, Milwaukee would need to get under the second apron to be able to aggregate the necessary salaries in a deal to acquire Beal. That will likely require find a team to take on Pat Connaughton’s $9.4 million contract, without the Bucks taking any salary back.

The Memphis Grizzlies’ front office felt like Taylor Jenkins had “lost the locker room” this season following an offseason reconstruction of his coaching staff and their struggles in the second half. The internal perception was that the players, most importantly Ja Morant, had tuned him out.

“That team has lost all of [its] swagger,” a rival Western Conference player told ESPN.

“You could just tell no one was on the same page,” one team source said.

The Grizzlies also fired Noah LaRoche along with Jenkins while elevating Tuomas Iisalo. Memphis hired LaRoche almost two months before hiring Iisalo. The Grizzlies had planned to build their assistant coaching staff around LaRoche.

Jenkins went along with the front office request to overhaul the coaching staff to “be a good partner.”

“Taylor shouldn’t have allowed that to happen,” said a source.

“Players aren’t stupid,” another source said. “They know where this is heading when you fire five assistants after the season.”