Comparing The Bucks To Entourage, Who Is Our Sloan?
There are two things going on right now that help the summer dullness, Entourage is back on HBO Sunday nights and the Milwaukee Bucks have reshaped their roster this summer. Sunday night has become a great night for tv, what else are you going to do with Monday right around the corner? Having your team make moves in the off-season always generates excitement and the Bucks have been plenty busy.
Bucks Moves
The Bucks have had an exciting off-season. As fans we love it when we know our team gives a crap. The Bucks have shown they give a crap. They had a solid core of Brandon Jennings, Andrew Bogut, John Salmons, Carlos Delfino, Luc Mbah A Moute and Ersan Ilyasova. Added to that mix are Drew Gooden, Corey Maggette, Chris Douglas-Roberts, rookie Larry Sanders and backup point guard Keyon Dooling. That is five guys that will all see minutes, some will get a lot of minutes added to a core group of 6.
Someone will be left out.
Entourage
I watch and enjoy the HBO show Entourage, have since day one. I watch it every week, and sometimes catch an episode multiple times. I have always had a problem with the 30 minute format, there just wasn’t enough time to get anything going or to resolve anything. For a comedy 30 minutes is not bad but as Entourage went along it developed real story lines that made it a drama with comedy thrown in. The show always feels like nothing ever gets done in a single episode, the show feels like one big tease.
Now the show has expanded to several storylines which are all interesting making the above problem magnified. They started with a core of Vince, E, Drama, Turtle and Ari. That was it for several seasons with some characters thrown in for a few episodes but nothing more. Now the show has added really intriguing storylines with new characters and there was already a shortage of time. Lizzie, the agent that was basically fired by Ari vowed to make Ari forget. The actress playing Lizzie is too pretty to be left off the show, I remember her from the OC and one very funny Sunny In Philadelphia where Mac faked his interest in abortion prevention to, as he put it, “Bang Her.”
Scott Cahn has also come on as Eric’s rival agent within the same company. Cahn has been around Vince too much for E’s comfort, even getting Vince a shot at a new movie. Last weeks episode ended with E and Cahn breaking Vince’s new $300,000 dinosaur skull purchase(wow can celebs waste money, even pretend celebs).
This leaves Sloan, one of my favorite recurring characters, and now E’s fiance, left with no time at all. There was already too little room for Sloan, the show is about an actor’s inner circle and Sloan could obviously never be in that. I have always thought she was too pretty, too rich and too smart to be with E but who cares, it is a tv show. Now, with the new characters added in with much better storylines she will be grasping for a minute or two at most each week.
Who Will Be Sloan?
Assuming nobody is traded, and there are some rumblings that someone could be on the block, who will get left out? Will multiple people get left out? We know Bogut, Jennings, Salmons and Gooden are safe, they will all get starter minutes. I think Maggette and Delfino will share the small forward spot while Chris Douglas Roberts will fill in for Salmons at the two and Dooling backs up Jennings. That leaves Luc, Ersan, Sanders, and the newly added Jon Brockman only so many minutes to backup the power forward and center positions, although Luc is a 3 as much as a four.
In all the excitement of the Bucks adding pieces this off-season we now need to look at having too much as a problem. It has been mentioned that Ersan will be the one with something to prove, to prove he should retain his minutes. Luc is one of the best defenders in the league, a Skiles favorite, how much will he sit? Sanders is a rookie everyone is getting excited for, will the Bucks ease him in?
Sanders is like the new storylines added into Entourage, he is too exciting to not get on the floor. My guess is he will be eased into the rotation and be asked for maximum effort in minimum time. When he makes a mistake he will get pulled, maybe for the night in most cases.
Luc Mbah A Moute will get minutes depending on the mathups each night. If there is a need for his defense on a particular opponent that he matches up very well with, Luc will get a lot of minutes. I can not see Skiles letting go a defender of his magnitude.
Ersan Ilyasova will be our backup power forward. I could see him and Gooden on the floor together to spell Bogut. Ersan has too many unique skills including his great effort and outside shooting to be left off the floor completely.
I think the odd man out will be Carlos Delfino unless Maggette gets into Scott Skiles doghouse, which could happen. Big guys with skills get playing time so Sanders and Ersan should be safe. Delfino will share backup time with CDR and Luc when the matchup warrants leaving his time on the floor very tough to predict.
What Can The Bucks Do?
I would not trade anybody. The Bucks have had multiple guys go down with season ending injuries in each of the last two years. I would not even think of moving Ersan with Bogut’s history. If two guys were to go down again the Bucks would quickly go from being overloaded to the risk of being too thin. Keep everything, leave it to Skiles to work through a rotation, if it looks like there are real chemistry issues move the problem. Entourage has not moved to an hour-long episode format, which would solve their biggest problem. The Bucks should take a similar stance, sit back and wait until they have to do something.