Milwaukee Bucks general manager Jon Horst on Patrick Beverley, Robin Lopez, the trade deadline and his confidence in this team

Milwaukee Bucks general manager Jon Horst held a post-trade deadline conference call with local media on Friday afternoon to address the acquisition of Patrick Beverley at the NBA trade deadline on Thursday.

The Bucks dealt Cameron Payne and a 2027 second-round draft to the Philadelphia 76ers for Beverley, who will be available to play against Charlotte. In a separate deal, the Bucks sent Robin Lopez and cash to Sacramento for the draft rights to Dimitrios Agravanis. That move also cleared a roster spot.

Here are the highlights of the roughly 15-minute call with Horst:

What does Patrick Beverley bring to the team?

Horst: We talked about, as we always do, try to identify pillars going into this things and ways that we will work to try to generate options and opportunities to improve. Without getting into all our pillars, in specific, the ones that he addresses, we believe, is point-of-attack defense and defensive versatility. So, he’s proven to be able to guard multiple positions in his career. He is an impactful point-of-attack defender who plays with a physicality and a toughness that we think will help us. I think it’s just kind of another player to add to the mix that plays with that physicality and that toughness we really think could help us. And then he’s obviously a capable scorer and shot-maker and he’s got a ton of experience. So, excited to have him.

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How involved was head coach Doc Rivers in the process to land Beverley?

Horst: Very involved. You guys know how I like to work and value his opinion and need his opinion and his partnership in this. And I think he feels it already and has experienced it already. Obviously we had; we were together on most of the last road trip before I broke off, and so we had a lot of time to talk about the roster, talk about things that were presenting themselves, things that we were discussing and evaluating, shared our process and our information with him in the way that we always have and always will, and so very involved.

He was incredibly impactful and helpful in helping myself and the staff navigate this. And ultimately, I always feel like it’s our job to build a roster that can play and compete at its best in the way that the coach wants. I mean, he’s the one that has to play these guys, he’s the one that has to coach them and really try to maximize what they do. And so Pat ‘Bev’ is someone that together we thought could help us.

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Trading Robin Lopez freed up a roster spot – do you plan to fill that on the buyout market?

Horst: Hard decision, hard move. Because you even saw it just recently, Robin, not only a great person, a great teammate. Robin helped us. At this point in the season, with 30 or so games left, trying to build for the playoffs, we had to make a decision of trying to create a; we couldn’t add to our team in any other way unless we had a roster spot. So we had to decide if getting that versatility and trying to add to the team in some of the ways that we think can help us differently was more important than having Robin in that spot. That’s a really, really tough decision, a decision I had to make and hopefully it was the right decision. You’ll never know, we’ll find out.

And now we’re on to trying to figure out who is available and how we can make this team better. The whole thing is always about trying to win and trying to win now. And we think having that roster flexibility in the short term – obviously we’ll fill it, we’ll sign somebody – is a way that we can get better, another way that we can get better and improve the team. And so we’ll see how we fill that spot, but we will fill that spot. I can’t tell you when. I’m not exactly sure with who or what it will look like, but we will do that.

Do you think there will be players available on the buyout market that can help you?

Horst: Yeah, I think we will. Obviously that’s part of the bet is we felt like we’re going have a chance to do that. And so, I think we will. There have been a couple of players that have been released already that I think could potentially be helpful. And there may be some others here in the next few days. It usually takes a couple days to really understand what will or won’t be available. But obviously that’s the bet that we made that we think that we’ll be able to add to our team with some impact here.

What did you think the overall trade market was like?

Horst: It feels like to me, it was a little bit, I would say, stale. It was a little bit slow compared to years past. I think the number of big things that happened is down. Some of the big things happened starting back in the offseason. You think of the things that we did and some of the things that happened a few weeks ago, the Toronto deals. And so, big things happened from the offseason until now, but in terms of just the deadline in the last couple of days, it seemed like maybe less movement than usual, less impactful movement than usual. And I think there's a lot of reasons for that. There's a lot of good teams who are playing well right now. The league has done a great job in creating an environment and a system where competitive balance is as good as it's ever been, and so teams realistically think they have a chance to do things that they want to do and compete at a high level in this league. So, I think it's all kind of pointed to maybe less action and less movement, but you guys would have to tell me. I don't know if that's true or not, that's just my sense of how this one played out. That's kind of what my sense of it was going into it as well. There's just a lot less sellers than years past.

How much confidence do you have in this roster going into the playoffs?

Horst: A lot. We’ve got to be healthy, together, at the right time, and you’ve got to be good enough and you’ve got to be lucky, right? So I absolutely think this team is good enough. We’re in a position where I believe we’ll be healthy at the right time. We’ve had good stretches of health for a lot of the year and have performed as one of the best teams in the NBA with that. We just went through a brutal stretch of schedule on the road, we’ve got a brutal stretch of schedule at home. And we’ve gotten some bumps and bruises along the way. And so the guys are playing their butts off, they’re fighting through it. Coach is coaching really well. There’s a really great togetherness and I think belief in what we’re doing and we just gotta keep that. We’ve got to keep that until we get whole. And hopefully get whole at the right time and catch a break here and there and I feel really good about this group.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Bucks general manager Jon Horst on Patrick Beverley, Robin Lopez, more