🦌🛑The Bucks stop here
In which STL defends Mike Budenholzer with a Perry Mason-like intensity. Also, volatility revisited, Succession memes, NBA draft buzz, and more.
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OPENING TIP
During a timeout in Game One of Rockets-Lakers, Mark Jackson dropped some of the keen insight we’ve come to expect from him: “The Bucks,” he noted, “need to be better on both offense AND defense.” And just like that, Coach Jackson had cut to the very heart of the problem.
When the season shut down, the Bucks were the winningest team in basketball, with a 10.1 point differential (the 11th best of all time). However, their visit to Disney World was anything but magical. They scuffled in the seeding games, dropped their first playoff game to guerilla warfare, and lost in five games to the 5th-seeded Miami Heat.
The NBA media, suspecting that there might be a way to somehow go even deeper than Mark Jackson, quickly came to consensus: Coach Mike Budenholzer blew it. He doesn’t play his stars enough. He doesn’t adjustments. He has never made it to the Finals (Ed. Note: other than the five trips with the Spurs as Pop’s lead assistant). Jonathan Tjarks suggested it was time to start coaching like his job was on the line. The takes will only get hotter today.
The question becomes: do the Bucks need to fire Coach Bud? It’s a huge decision. Budenholzer has led them to the best regular season record two years in a row, but they have a (presumed) two-time MVP entering a contract year, and many league observers believed the Bucks needed to make the Finals this year to re-sign Giannis. While Giannis told Yahoo’s Chris Haynes he won’t ask for a trade, GM Jon Horst still needs to decide if Budenholzer can get the Bucks to the Promised Land.
Luckily for Horst, the basketball minds at Save The Lottery have decided to weigh in: The Bucks need to be better on both offense AND defense. Wait. Sorry. In fact, what we wondered was: are we sure the Bucks are that talented?
Heading into the 2018-2019 season, no one thought so. 538, ESPN, and Bleacher Report projected the Bucks for 44, 47, and 45 wins, respectively. They had just won 44 games the previous season and returned largely the same roster. Their “marquee” roster moves were signing Brook Lopez to a $3M contract and drafting Donte DiVincenzo with the 19th pick.
Yet they tore out of the gate and won 60 games. By the time the playoffs rolled around, they were heavy favorites, and thus the miraculous comeback by the Raptors (who would go on to defeat Golden State and win the title) was framed as a failure.
The main grievances against Bud as chronicled by Tjarks are as follows:
He doesn’t play his stars enough minutes. Tjarks points to Giannis playing only 35 minutes in a critical game and Middleton’s on/off-court numbers as evidence of this. Apparently, Khris Middleton doesn’t play worse when he gets tired. As for Giannis, he expends more energy during his time on the court than anyone, thanks to his bruising, attacking style on offense. It’s likely that the Bucks are incredibly deliberate about his minute count. In any event, Erik Spoelstra’s stars basically matched Giannis and Middleton’s minutes. Why is this a big deal?
His offensive scheme is predictable, with a heavy dose of Giannis attacking a wall of Heat defenders and a lack of on-ball creation outside of Khris Middleton. But GM Jon Horst traded the Bucks’ best on-ball creator, Malcolm Brogdon, for a non-lottery first round pick. His starting point guard is below average as both a passer and an outside shooter for his position. How are these things Bud’s fault?
He doesn’t make defensive adjustments. Tjarks mentions Giannis not guarding Butler, and the Bucks’ drop coverage of pick-and-rolls, as examples of this. But Giannis is best as a help defender and struggles to get through screens. He isn’t a good defensive matchup for Butler. And the Bucks can’t play a switching system to defend Heat PNRs with Brook Lopez on the court. Lopez is the Bucks’ third best player. Budenholzer’s alternative would be benching him for Marvin Williams, who the Bucks picked up off waivers in February, and who retired immediately following game 5. This is who the Bucks should have bet their playoff hope on?
Speaking of the Bucks’ roster, Draymond Green noted on TNT that Miami isn’t the least bit scared of Milwaukee’s complementary players. Eric Bledsoe is a physical specimen who teams don’t need to guard in playoff fourth quarters. Lopez, despite his amazing reclamation project story and high level of play, forces the Bucks to play a certain style on defense (due to his lack of mobility) that other teams can exploit. Wes Matthews was signed for a league minimum contract. The Bucks’ recent draft picks contributed basically nothing to this playoff run. It’s hard to blame their 2019 first round selection (Kevin Porter) for this since his rights were sold to Cleveland on draft night.
History suggests that teams need multiple Hall of Famers to win an NBA title. Michael & Pippen. Shaq & Kobe. Steph, Klay, Draymond, then KD. LeBron, Wade, Bosh. Duncan, Parker, Kawhi, Manu. A single star plus an ensemble almost never gets it done. Sorry Khris Middleton, you’re no Wade or Pippen.
There seem to be two possibilities to consider. One: the NBA consensus was wrong about the Bucks before, but they are definitely right that Mike Budenholzer can’t coach in the playoffs. Two: Budenholzer in fact had something to do with everything from Giannis’s leap to dominant superstar to the Bucks’ other pieces massively overperforming.
That the outcome of one playoff series could result in both the firing of an objectively excellent coach and the departure of perhaps the league’s best player is the cruel reality of the NBA. So before Jon Horst fires Coach Bud, he better look in the mirror. Did Bud give Bledsoe a contract extension, only to watch him immediately implode in the 2019 playoffs? Did he trade an All Star-level player in Malcolm Brogdon for no immediate help? Did he sell their 2019 first round pick? Let’s be less equivocal. Don’t fire one of the best coaches in the NBA. Instead, give Bud the pieces he needs, and we suspect that next year Bucks will manage to be better on both offense AND defense.
TWEET OF THE WEEK
On a totally unrelated note:
THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE DOME
When the bubble began, we wondered what it might mean to play every night on a neutral court. Since then, things got weird.
Number one seeds are 0-4 in Game Ones in the bubble. The one and two seeds in the East both went 0-2 to start a round for the first time ever. The Heat, a 10:1 underdog, advanced. Lu Dort scored 30 points (and sold a bunch of license plates). At this point, nothing could surprise us.
So what have we actually learned? Well, a lot. Or possibly nothing. The truth is that drawing conclusions from a sample size of 8.2 playoff series is questionable, but making an editorial decision to do nothing isn’t real exciting, so we took a look at the data:
More upsets, more single possession games, more overtime games, more Dort! It kinda looks like volatility to us. You are of course free to draw your own conclusions, but betting that anything will go as expected in 2020 doesn’t feel like the smart money.
AT THE BUZZER
Tim Bontemps on NBA Draft buzz. No, really, the Warriors are totally not trading the #2 pick. Nothing to see here.
Pistons discover a creative source of low-cost financing: season ticket deposits.
Can athletic intelligence be measured? The NFL is trying to find out.
PJ Washington tries to monetize himself.
Succession characters ranked by their basketball prowess.
John Hollinger looks at how the West’s eliminated playoff teams will approach the offseason (subscription required). Chris Paul may want to start looking at Milwaukee real estate.
Duncan Robinson has no time for two points.
TNT recouping that green.