Former Buck upset team did not re-sign him after championship run

The Milwaukee Bucks are defending their NBA title with a new fifth starter this season. But the man who occupied that spot for them last season sounds upset that things played out the way that they did.

Veteran forward PJ Tucker, who signed with the Miami Heat this offseason, indicated this week that he was not pleased about the Bucks letting him go.

“I was pretty surprised,” he said, per Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald. “You win a championship and you’re part of winning something special like that, you would expect that. A chance of it not happening? There’s a chance. It didn’t happen. Does it happen a lot? I don’t think so, not in that situation, not in those situations. You watch role guys in series in the past, usually those guys go back. So I’ll take my situation as just that, a particular situation. I move on from it and keep it going.

“All the fans blamed me right away, not knowing the situation, [about] what happened,” Tucker went on. “So that was definitely a raw emotion, right in that moment. But it is what it is. It’s business. They made a decision, I made a decision, and we move on. It is what it is. But to say that I’m not circling every time we play Milwaukee, I would be lying to you.”

Tucker signed a two-year, $15 million deal with the Heat this offseason. He had made an important contribution to the Bucks’ title run with his reliable corner three and his willingness to get down and dirty defensively, which took some of the load off Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton.

There has definitely been a bit of a rivalry brewing between the Bucks and the Heat in recent seasons. Now the addition of a vengeful Tucker to the Miami side should send the sparks flying even further.

Photo: Dec 21, 2019; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; Houston Rockets forward PJ Tucker (17) against the Phoenix Suns at Talking Stick Resort Arena. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports