Milwaukee Bucks general manager John Hammond announced Monday that the team will not exercise the third-year team option on the contract of forward Joe Alexander.

"It was a difficult decision not to pick up Joe Alexander's option," said Hammond. "Joe has missed valuable on-court development opportunities due to injury during his first two training camps, and this year he will miss almost the first three months of the season with his hamstring injury.

"We believe Joe can be a good NBA player, but his latest injury had hampered our ability to further assess his progress."

Alexander aggravated his right hamstring injury during rehabilitation exercises in mid-October and is expected to be sidelined for a period of 8-to-12 weeks.