John Hammond is not making any pretenses that the Bucks will be able to afford to climb over the luxury tax during the 2009-10 season.

"We need to have discipline moving forward," said Hammond. "That means that we need to have discipline from the financial side of our decisions. We are a team that is teetering at the (luxury) tax and for us to change our roster and to move the organization in a direction which we feel that we would want to go, we're going to need some financial flexibility. And in order to get to that position, we have to have discipline here initially."

Staying below the luxury-tax threshold for next season will be paramount for the Bucks.

Charlie Villanueva and Ramon Sessions will both be restricted free agents, but the club is already at approximately $67 million in salary with just their qualifying offers, if you also count in the salary of their draft pick.