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If there is one thing I am laser-focused on this offseason for the Milwaukee Bucks, it is whatever shakeups GM Jon Horst is able to make happen in the big man rotation. Love them as we do, I just can’t take another season in which Giannis Antetokounmpo, Brook Lopez, Bobby Portis, and nepotism signing X are the best the team can put out on the floor night after night. In a world where you could guarantee me a vastly-improved Bucks perimeter defense, I could be swayed to stay the execution of this big core. Since Damian Lillard is likely here to stay I’ve no choice but to sign the warrant to break things up.
A large piece of the puzzle around the Bucks has been that of Brook Lopez. Build a defense around his strengths and you’ll be rewarded; fail to do so and his value becomes fluid at best. Yet there has been no viable replacement, no understudy (his twin brother doesn’t count), no interesting alternative since Brook arrived that wasn’t Bobby. Portis is many things, but a center he is not. The defensive philosophy the team adopts when he takes the floor is akin to actual prayer.
With Brook aging and having already flirted with being out the door last summer, is it finally time for the Bucks to take the task of succession planning at the five slot more seriously? Draft a young guy with upside and a year to grow into himself? Scour the free agent and trade markets for second-chance players looking for a chance to turn their career around? Just use Giannis Antetokounmpo?
Wait, what?
Unfortunately, it is never that simple. Giannis hasn’t really had much interest in a lot of the gritty dirty work being a center with some of these smaller lineups would demand of him. The team just came off two playoffs where injuries to him essentially ended the season, and pushing him up a position is asking for more wear and tear. It is easier and cooler to be The Man when the other big on the floor is seven-feet tall and instructed to stand as far away from the paint as possible.
And the team seems to be moving further and further away from even making an actual attempt at that style of play. Last season, just 3% of his 2021 minutes had him as the center; compare that to 16% in 2022-2023, 32% in 2021-2022 (the year Lopez broke his back), and 12% in 2020-2021. His net rating in those few minutes was +12.3 while his time as PF got the team to +7.0. Of the two ends of the floor, it was the team defense that saw slightly more of a gain over the offense (although it, too, improved with him at center). Tactically, the thing most strongly in favor of Giannis-at-center is the flexibility it offers the Bucks on defense. He’s strong enough to hold his own with other centers over brief periods, he’s quick enough to help cover up a few deficiencies in the lineups around him, and switching can actually function. That it can also charge up the offense’s speed is an added boost.
Unless and until he wants to own it, though, the Bucks will have to find guys to fill that role. Right now it is Brook Lopez. Can it be him another two or three seasons? Can the Bucks afford for that? The possible routes are many and likely fraught with plenty of danger, yet Father Time casts an ever larger shadow, too.
Let’s roundup!
Milwaukee Bucks Links
I ate like Giannis Antetokounmpo for a weekend (Milwaukee Record)
A very funny article idea that had a regular guy like Tyler Maas questioning if he’d make it through a weekend eating Giannis-endorsed products. From chicken nuggets to smoothies, Starry to half Sprite/half lemonade concoctions (hold the ice), Tyler certainly checked off at least one or two of the main food groups during his quest. Thanks for your sacrifice, Tyler!
Damian Lillard is proof all superstar power plays aren’t created equal (Washington Post)
I missed this one in the initial post-crash-out nuclear fallout glow generated by the Bucks, but it is a theme gone back to in this column a few times over the past few months. Namely, has the dynamic in NBA team building based on star hunting shifted? If I were to think on it, the conclusion might be that teams acquiring stars who are finally demanding out of situations are getting guys who are starting to age out of relevance and have massive contracts to boot. Essentially, when you wade into the deep waters of going after a Damian Lillard-type player, the timeline gets so forcefully compressed that it is hard to get out of. Milwaukee traded for Jrue Holiday — a second-tier star guard with second-tier payment owed and a few years of his prime still to go — and got it to cohere quickly enough. The same cannot, obviously, be said for the Lillard experiment thus far.
NBA Draft Combine 2024 winners and losers: Bronny James performs under pressure; Zach Edey is bigger, but slow (CBS Sports)
Appreciate the reporting on who is up and who is down after the last major NBA-run event for the incoming draft class. I fully expect Edey to stick with expectations, fall in the first round because the history of truly gigantic lumbering big guys of recent vintage like him isn’t great, and for there to a crazy enough theory floating out there that maybe, just maybe, he could be Brook Lopez’s understudy and Milwaukee’s center of the future. Which brings us to…
Mock Draft Prospect of the Week
Zach Edey – Senior, Purdue – 7’3”, 306 pounds, 22 years old, Center
Let me get a couple of things out of the way to help clear up my priors:
I do not watch college basketball outside of the University of Minnesota — and even they sparingly make the TV
I have long held firm to my (extremely lazy) take that Zach Edey is just Tacko Fall 2.0 and woe to the team who burns a first-round pick on him
And yet… could picking Edey at 23 be so crazy that it just might work? To the highlights!
Far more intelligent and well-informed people than myself have had their say on Edey. He’s a giant of a man who has a decent amount of touch in the paint, we’ve not a clue if he has or could develop and outside shot worth a damn, and he has the opposite of whatever foot speed is defensively. On the upside he is pretty grown into his body and so should avoid the usual concern with some college bigs who struggle to translate strength-wise to the league, but 7’3” are also prone to racking up injuries as part of the job description.
As far as change of pace, it’d be like inserting a far lesser, yet taller, Brook Lopez out there when Brook is on the bench or featuring for another NBA franchise. Could he save Giannis from some punishment if things were to go perfectly? I think I am okay with the idea of Edey while failing to see how it’d translate if he were in Milwaukee. I’m on the hunt for a functional big man, of that there is no doubt, but this particular big could be too much of a throwback for me to stomach.
The Social Media Section
For those of you who use Instagram as a way to read Bucks-related tea leaves: Brook Lopez is never leaving
Bobby+Drake backing track = God only knows what this summer has in store
The garage Dame is standing in front of here looks like every garage in a moderately-sized Midwestern city. It could be my garage, even.
Thanasis’s fits stay undeniable, though. I give him a lot of stick, but credit where credit is due
Elsewhere around the NBA, the playoffs continue with no end in sight. The Indiana Pacers advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals to face the Boston Celtics, and while it is fair to wonder which brand of obnoxious basketball is the lesser evil, I for one will be pulling for the Pacers. Simply put, should the Pacers miraculously win a title this year I can rest easy knowing that the Bucks were spiritually the runners-up to gold.
Basketball’s transitive property remains unimpeachable in this column.
Happy Monday!
Source link : https://www.brewhoop.com/2024/5/20/24160502/monday-morning-media-roundup-giannis-antetokounmpo-milwaukee-bucks-center-lineups
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Publish date : 2024-05-20 11:30:00
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