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The Ideal Starting Lineup of the Milwaukee Bucks

By Justin Woodard

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The Milwaukee Bucks may not have an ideal starting five at this point in the season.

In just 22 games played this season so far, the Milwaukee Bucks have already used at least five different starting lineups and none of them have really made fans think, “this could be the one.”

The starting five all of us had envisioned of Michael Carter-Williams, Khris Middleton, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jabari Parker and Greg Monroe has been used less than five times this season, for multiple reasons. The only memorable game with those five on the floor at the first tip is the overtime win against the Cleveland Cavaliers back on November 14.

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We can throw out the blowout loss at home to start the season against the New York Knicks because Antetokounmpo was forced to sit out due to a suspension.

Despite the multiple changes to the starting squad there have been two mainstays in Middleton and Monroe. This is expected considering that they are the two highest paid players on the team, and that they are the two expected to do most of the scoring as leaders of this young team. And just to mention that first blowout loss one more time, “The Greek Freak” has started every game except for that one.

The two flipped in and out of the starting unit most to begin this season have been Carter-Williams and Parker. In the case of Parker it still has to do with his recovery from injury.

The MCW conundrum has been a topic of discussion all season long, and it continues to get interesting. Carter-Williams has been out of the starting lineup since the loss at Charlotte on November 29. Frank Madden of brewhoop.com wrote an interesting piece on what the Bucks could do with MCW to make him be the best player he can be for himself and his team.

As an MCW fan I hope he ultimately finds his way back into the starting lineup, but I also believe Madden makes a very good point in his article, and I certainly wouldn’t be opposed if things continue to work out for the young point guard.

With three of the four point guards on the roster down with an injury one might ask, who will start other than Carter-Williams? Head Coach Jason Kidd answered that question on Saturday night sliding O.J. Mayo in as the floor captain.

Mandatory Credit: Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports

Maybe it’s a sign of good things to come considering the fact that they beat the Knicks pretty convincingly that night, and MCW had one of his best performances of the season tallying 20 points and five assists.

While Mayo has started five of the 10 games he’s played since returning from injury, guys like Jerryd Bayless and Johnny O’Bryant had earned a couple of starts in the absence of others.

Bayless is out with a sore ankle at the moment, but before his injury he had started seven of 19 games played. He has put up solid numbers to start the season averaging 11.7 points a game and 3.7 assists a game. His 43.7 percent from beyond the arc makes him a more viable option than Carter-Williams at the moment considering that the young guard still struggles mightily with his jump shot.

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Even though nobody wanted to see Parker still sitting on the bench to begin this season, it was a good time for O’Bryant to get some much needed experience playing in the NBA. While obviously it brings a huge smile to the faces of Bucks’ fans everywhere to see Parker slam dunking more often each night, it was also nice to see O’Bryant play well in his absence early on.

While most of us probably want to see the full slate of young Bucks starting every night, I still believe they are at least a year or two away from what many of us are hoping they will be in the future. The defense has finally been better in the last couple of games with Mayo on the floor first and I think Coach Kidd will keep him in there for now.

At this point in the season it’s hard to say that the Milwaukee Bucks actually have an ideal starting lineup. More times than not, a good team will have the same starting lineup night in and night out. Well let’s just say the Bucks are not a very good team to start the 2015-16 season.

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