Milwaukee Bucks links for your perusal on November 18th, 2024
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
About a year ago the Milwaukee Bucks were starting to discover a disturbing lack of faith in their coaching staff. By this point we’d gotten the hint that the team’s very solid record was to be largely credited to individual talent doing just enough to win in spite of a non-existent defense. Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard hadn’t found a rhythm yet, but between them and a tertiary starting role for Khris Middleton, victories still rolled in.
Fast-forward a year and a 4-9 start later—with close defeats and woulda, shoulda, couldas mixed in aplenty—and we’ve a new series of questions about roster, players, front office, coaches, and beyond. 2023-2024’s failings failing were firmly placed at Adrian Griffin’s feet. Having canned him in lieu of a new head coach it almost seemed redundant to run that blame game again. Whatever Doc Rivers apologia I engaged in has well and truly petered out, but the uninspiring start to this campaign seemed so total that focus zoomed past Rivers and narrowed in on the players this time around.
And not just any player. Giannis Antetokounmpo himself.
Those Giannis critiques made sense, too. I’ve been advocating for Giannis 2.0 (or even 1.5!) for a very long time, so it’d be (typically) hypocritical of me to pretend otherwise. In my reading of the web tea leaves, the primary driver in Antetokounmpo taker-y had much to do with the painfully thin margins the Bucks were (and still are) competing in. An offense and defense this anemic required near-perfection when it mattered most to register wins. Giannis’s current propensity to make sub-optimal decisions at sub-optimal points looks glaring in this context. If he simply passed out of bad shots, stopped calling his own number, threw his muscle around more off-ball, started caring more on defense, etc etc etc., maybe 4-9 looks more like 6-7. We got brief stretches of incompetent pseudo-hero ball sinking the ship instead. Anxiety properly ensued.
A few weeks on, Middleton remains nowhere in sight and Damian Lillard is concussed. Where does that leave Milwaukee? Right back where they started. Giannis Antetokounmpo unleashed and the difference between a relatively successful 2-1 week and the total abyss. That turn of events ironically encourages more questions than reliable answers.
The entire debate boils down to a sort of basketball chicken or the egg exercise. Does Giannis play the way he does because he is so in love with his own production or does he do so because the units around him fail to do enough to take something off his plate? Do teammates struggle because of Giannis’s play style or are they genuinely not fit for purpose in a system that includes him? Crucially, will the Milwaukee Bucks win more games if Giannis remains in 1.0 territory while marginalizing his “star” compatriots or will they win more if he shifts to 1.5 and takes something off his own plate to give to others?
We can and will debate the merits of all those possibilities eight ways to Sunday. If we had answers to these questions, Jon Horst and Doc Rivers would be collecting wealthy people unemployment benefits.
In the short-term the gauntlet has once again been thrown to Antetokounmpo. At 2-8 with the sharks circling he was asked to carry his franchise a few steps out of the wilderness. He has answered yet again:
- 35.3 MPG (second-highest of his career)
- 32.3 PPG (highest of his career)
- 12.3 RPG (third-highest of his career)
- 6.1 APG (second-highest of his career)
- .039 3PAr (lowest of his career)
- 9.6% TOV% (lowest of his career)
The contrarian point-of-view reasonably argues this shows Giannis playing more like Giannis than ever before. Such an approach will prove his undoing and besides, what has all that gotten the team? 4-9 and plenty of chop on the Sea of Rumors. I’ll zag against that slightly, though, and say we’re getting the most focused style of Antetokounmpo in years. Next to no threes, efficient scoring, working on- and off-ball inside the three-point line to draw attention, exceedingly few turnovers.
There are, obviously, areas for legitimate critique and improvement. His free throw percentage has never been worse and his free throw rate is low compared to career averages. The ball watching on defense continues (although it has improved a bit over the past week or two). Decision-making in high-leverage moments undermines the hard work he’s done the rest of a game. And there’s much more besides.
For the moment, though, with the schedule lightening up and the cavalry decidedly not on the way just yet, the team has returned to its most protean state. Giannis Antetokounmpo is the only way through. He’s answered the bell.
Same as it ever was.
Let’s roundup!
Milwaukee Bucks Links
A Giannis Antetokounmpo trade is the only solution to this impending Bucks disaster (SB Nation)
In case you hadn’t seen the source of the last week’s sound and fury (as channeled through the rage of our very own Kyle Carr), here you go! On its own merits I do not think the article is all that strong. Outside of imbibing in the chatter of the NBA online ecosystem, there are no new angles brought into focus here. This is not to suggest that Milwaukee’s situation couldn’t be radically bleak in a radically short period of time—the 2-8 start did that talking for me. But the one thing that is missed in a lot of these discussions is that regardless of incoming first-round picks, Giannis has monumentally more volume to the franchise than draft capital. Could there be a point at which it would make sense (i.e. Giannis opts to head to free agency rather than re-sign another extension)? Perhaps. Until that point is reached, though, I’d be skeptical of any proposition that sees the team pull THAT lever rather than some of the other options leading up to armageddon.
NBA Stock Watch: Giannis Trade Rumors (The Ringer)
And to be fair to the Haters, there really are a lot of reasons to hate watching this team. The collapse to the Celtics put a capper on a truly disastrous run of uninspiring basketball. Then Lillard got knocked upside the head and we’re back to watching Giannis try to crack a boulder in half with his head. Even with the first winning-streak of the season there remain reasons for serious doubt. Would I prefer if the outside world kept mum on wild speculation? Of course. But the truth of what this basketball team has been so far cannot be controversial.
Milwaukee Bucks 2024-25 City Edition Uniform: Gathering place (NBA.com)
As we mercifully come to the end of the blue alternate uniform series, I want to note that this may somehow be the least-bad of the bunch they’ve done. However, it should also be noted that a proper honoring of Lake Michigan and Milwaukee’s rivers would mean these uniforms should have been brown from the start. That’s the reality of freshwater bodies in the Midwest.
NBA in serious talks about changing All-Star format to four-team tournament in 2025 (CBS Sports)
Uh… sure. Or we could just scrap the whole shebang entirely?
Know Your NBA Enemy
Houston Rockets (again) – The Dream Shake – Should Jabari Smith Jr. be replaced in Rockets starting lineup?
He absolutely should… because his replacement in that lineup is currently a Milwaukee Buck (which one? TBD) and that individual will be taking on the starter mantle in his place. If Smith Jr. is destined to eke out an existence as a NBA sixth-man, he is welcome to do so here.
Chicago Bulls – Blog A Bull – The Bulls are going for it, but what is ‘it’?
Excellence in written antipathy as always from our colleagues just south of the state border. What looked like a hot start (helped by the Bucks!) has sputtered into a one game lead in the standings above the East’s awful bunch in Milwaukee, Washington, Philly, and Toronto. At least the Bucks quite literally have no reason to lose. Chicago has a first-round pick to protect!
Indiana Pacers – Indy Cornrows – Pacers not ready for Heat in NBA Cup opener, will try again on Sunday
Yet another East team with a modicum of preseason ambitions who have come bumbling out of the gates. The few minutes of Pacers ball I’ve watched have shown them at their offensive best, but the middling record indicates I merely caught a glimpse of them at their best.
Charlotte Hornets – At The Hive – Recap/Analysis: LaMelo Ball leads Hornets to win over Bucks
As I get older I enjoy the ribbing of comments sections more and more, especially opposing comments sections. If I’m not mistake, I believe a reader over there took quotes from a BH recap article and pointed at it with a crying laughing emoji at a bunch of BABIES. This is what sports are about! Being dumb and held largely unaccountable for in-the-moment deranged posting.
The Social Media Section
MarJon posts are a lot funnier if you just read them as thinly-veiled shots at Jon Horst
Your time will come (post-trade deadline when we’re down to 1.5 functional rotation bigs)
Sure
Good questions being asked by reasonable people
By “worst conditions” he means the entirety of that title run
Keep gunning, kid
All they can do is move forward
Riley’s 2024-2025 Prediction Record: 7-6
Milwaukee Bucks 2024-2025 Actual Record: 4-9
As you’ll have surely seen noted elsewhere on Bucks-adjacent internet spaces, this stretch of eight games with six home tilts mixed in presents a wonderful opportunity to keep this ship moving in the right direction.
The games this week! (All times Central)
- v. Houston Rockets, Monday, Nov. 18th — 7:00 PM
- v. Chicago Bulls, Wednesday, Nov. 20th — 6:30 PM
- NBA CUP — v. Indiana Pacers, Friday, Nov. 22nd — 7:00 PM
- v. Charlotte Hornets, Saturday, Nov. 23rd — 7:00 PM
I will boldly predict that the team will one-up themselves by having a new greatest-week-of-the-season (so far) and go 3-1 with a loss to the Rockets to keep readers humble before ending the week on a short burst of high notes.
Happy Monday!