Milwaukee Bucks: Time to Move Carter-Williams and Monroe

With the team failing to gel on the court, it’s time the Milwaukee Bucks trade Michael Carter-Williams and Greg Monroe.

The 2015-16 season has been a disaster for the Milwaukee Bucks. After showing some signs of life in January, overall the Bucks have fallen into another slump, falling to a disappointing 22-32 record.

At this point, the Bucks are closer to securing a top three pick in this summer’s draft than making noise in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

Many factors have led to the demise of the Milwaukee Bucks. However, I see the most obvious cause for their decline as the lack of chemistry between the guys on the team.

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If rumors are to be believed, the team has made two of its most recent acquisitions available at the trade deadline: Greg Monroe and Michael Carter-Williams.

At first glance, this may seem like a hasty move. After all, few if any teams improve every single season and this team has only had 54 games to really evaluate whether their young starting five can really work.

When you dig deeper, however, it becomes clear that the Bucks cannot win long-term with the team currently constructed as is.

At this time last season, the Bucks were flying high. Led by Brandon Knight, the Bucks sat six games above .500 at the All-Star break and looked like one the Eastern Conference’s most dangerous teams. For the first time since the Fear The Deer campaign of 2009-10, the Bucks created a real buzz.

Management, however, faced a difficult task. With Brandon Knight and Khris Middleton on the verge of free agency, the Bucks were faced the prospect of paying either Knight or Middleton. Paying both meant the team would be faced with long-term cap implications that could affect their ability to sign free agents and re-sign their potential stars in Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jabari Parker years down to road.

As a result, just before the deadline passed, the Bucks traded Brandon Knight in a three-way trade which netted them Michael Carter-Williams. The Bucks chose Middleton over Knight.

The trade, however blindsided many on the team. Just days before, Head Coach Jason Kidd had denied that the Bucks were shopping Knight, saying that team had no intention to mess with their great chemistry. After experiencing the train wreck of the 2013-14 season, the team, with largely the same starting five as the season before, had risen from the ashes and gotten themselves into the middle of the Eastern Conference playoffs. Many on the team loved Knight, and his style of play seemed to mesh well with what the team needed on a nightly basis.

After the trade, the Bucks on-court chemistry tanked and the team experienced a major drop-off. The offense, which had already been average at-best with Knight at the helm, dropped off a cliff, struggling to find any sort of rhythm or consistency for the remainder of the season. In addition, the team was beginning to show signs of weakness on defense, particularly against the corner three. As a result, the Bucks backed into the playoffs and got knocked out in the first round.

Most were willing to dismiss the struggles at the end of last season as a blip. Carter-Williams and Brandon Knight were drastically different players, and every time a team makes a major move, it takes time for the talent gel. Even the big three in Miami were under .500 in their first 15 games together.

The off-season, however, saw an even greater shake-up. Knowing the team was in need of a long-term option at center, the team heavily pursued major free agents at the position. In the end, they landed one of the most coveted players on the market in Greg Monroe, and traded Zaza Pachulia.

After the signing, the hopes and expectations of the franchise were as high as they had been in years. Everyone, including those within the organization, believed they had a great team on their hands. As a result, many around the league expected the Bucks to become an even greater force in the East than they had been the year before, possibly posing the greatest threat to Cleveland in the East.

Things, however, have gone much differently. Instead of contending for 50 wins, the Bucks are contending for 50 losses and a high lottery pick.

Like last season, the team’s on court chemistry has been off. Despite some moments of brilliance, the Bucks have generally been awful, seemingly stuck in a pit of despair. Every time the team seems to be turning the corner, they fall back into the same vices which have cost them so many games. Thus, despite major improvement from Antetokounmpo and Middleton, the team finds itself on the verge of Making a Lottery.

The on-court struggles have caused the team to ask some uncomfortable questions that it wasn’t expecting to ask so soon. Is the long-term future really as bright as we originally thought? Can this team, as currently constructed, ever remold itself and become a serious contender for an NBA title?

At first glance, it might seem like an unjustified panic to consider trading Carter-Williams and Monroe so early on in their Bucks tenure. First, the team has only been together for 54 games. It takes time for teams to build a chemistry. It doesn’t happen over night.

In addition, the team is very young. The starting five is among the league’s youngest. Their two core players, Parker and Antetokounmpo, are each only 20 and 21 respectively and the team’s oldest starter, Monroe, is only 25.

These are fair points to raise, as the team’s talent and ceiling is far from a certainty at this point in time.

When you dig deeper, however, it becomes glaringly obvious that the long-term fit and ceiling of this team is actually quite limited.

First, it’s become clear that the Bucks defense cannot function as currently constructed. Despite having over 50 games to gel, the Bucks have made no improvements at all on the defensive end of the floor, remaining in the bottom six in defensive efficiency throughout the entire season.

The same problems which existed at the start of the season have persisted throughout. Some of the blame rests with the defensive scheme that the team has implemented. The aggressive style of double and triple teaming the ball-handler makes it very easy for teams to find an open guy cutting to the basket or in the corner for an open three.

What caught teams off-guard a year ago has been figured out by everyone around the league. Thus, it comes as no surprise that the team has experienced a major drop off on the defensive end.

The limitations of the defense, however, cannot be solely explained by the scheme. Much of the blame also rests with the players, particularly Carter-Williams and Monroe.

Carter-Williams has experienced a rocky season, at best, on the defensive end. His tendency to press the ball-handler and go over screens has left the team overly exposed. As a result, guys are forced out of position, having to rotate onto the ball-handler after Carter-Williams has been burned. This leaves the opposing team with much more favorable match-ups and open shots.

No matter who he’s matched up with, Carter-Williams continues to play a heavy press style. Even against Rajon Rondo, Carter-Williams tried to go over screens, even though Rondo posed no threat from three. It’s been his reckless aggression which has helped contribute to many break-downs on the defensive end.

Carter-Williams, however, has not been the only one to struggle. Greg Monroe has also had his fair share of problems on the defensive end as well.

When he signed for Milwaukee this past off-season, the Bucks knew that Monroe had certain limitations on the defensive end. First, Monroe has never been known as an elite rim-protector. In fact, Monroe has never averaged over one block per game in any season, and his advanced analytics at stopping players at the rim have consistently been poor.

In addition to his lack of shot-blocking, Monroe also lacks the requisite foot speed to be anything above an average defender. The key to being able to guard is having lateral quickness. If you can’t move quickly from side-to-side, quicker players will blow by you. As Monroe has shown throughout the course of his career, he’s not the quickest guy, and his one-on-one and pick-and-roll defense has suffered as a result.

Despite these limitations, the Bucks were willing to sign him this past summer. The thinking within the organization was that, if the team could succeed with a similarly limited player in Zaza Pachulia, then surely they could make Monroe work, even if it took time for him to learn the defensive approach.

Related Story: What Players Should Milwaukee Bucks Target In A Potential Greg Monroe Trade?

Monroe’s limitations, however, have had farther reaching consequences than anyone anticipated. Much of this has come from the fact that Monroe is playing alongside a similarly limited player in Jabari Parker.

Though they play different positions, Parker has many of the same weaknesses that Monroe has. Parker is not the most laterally quick player, and this makes him a major liability when he gets put into pick-and-roll situations where he is now forced to guard a much quicker player. In addition, Parker has little to no experience guarding forwards since he spent the majority of his time playing as a small ball center in his one season at Duke.

Given these limitations, Parker’s long term defensive ceiling is suspect at best. His skills should get better as time goes on, but it appears as if Parker will never become anything more than a slightly below average defender, no matter what position he ends up playing.

If Parker was the only poor defender on the team, the Bucks could do their best to hide him on defense and work around his weaknesses. After all, Khris Middleton and Giannis Antetokounmpo are capable of guarding multiple positions and can cover the most skilled players that any team fields. However, when you have a front court that consists of two below average defenders, your defensive ceiling is significantly limited.

Having a strong protector of the rim is key to any team playing good defense. If you can stop teams from getting close, or make things extremely difficult for them when they do come inside, you force them to take lower percentage shots. Even in today’s league, which boasts some of the best shooters we’ve ever seen, you still need to be able to protect the basket before all else. Otherwise, the defense has to compensate and it leaves guys open beyond the arc, something that has been a persistent problem for the Bucks throughout this season

Given these problems, it make a Parker-Monroe front court pairing unlikely to work long term.

The defensive limitations of Carter-Williams and Monroe, however, are not the only reasons why the Bucks must entertain moving them at the deadline. If the Bucks boasted a top five offense, the poor defensive performances wouldn’t be under as much scrutiny. But, this is not the case.

Both Carter-Williams and Monroe have harmed the offensive cohesion of the team, with each contributing their own unique set of problems on that side of the floor.

Carter-Williams has never been a shooter. In fact, his game is that of an old-school guard. Instead of relying on his ability to shoot, Carter-Williams needs to take advantage of post-ups and drives in order to score on offense.

If the team had shooters at its other positions, this would not be that big of a problem. However, when you have four guys who can’t score outside of 15 feet, not having a point guard who can shoot really hurts the team.

The lack of spacing with Carter-Williams on the floor has hurt their key players’ ability to get opportunities on cuts. Teams sit five to seven feet off of Carter-Williams, choosing instead to cut off the passing lanes and drive opportunities. This takes away Antetokounmpo and Parker’s strongest skills.

In addition, his need of having the ball in his hands to score also puts the team at major disadvantage. By commanding the ball so frequently on offense, Carter-Williams is taking touches away from Antetokounmpo, Middleton, and Parker, the three guys who the offense should be built around. In fact, his dominance on the ball has essentially relegated Parker to being a fifth option, despite Parker possessing a superior offensive game.

Related Story: Milwaukee Bucks Rumors: Michael Carter-Williams On The Move?

At times, Carter-Williams has played as a fourth or fifth option on offense, working as a facilitator rather than a primary scoring option. This is what the Bucks wanted from him when they traded for him. However, in many other games, Carter-Williams finds himself taking more shots than Antetokounmpo or Parker, despite both guys possessing superior skills. This raises serious questions about his long-term viability as this team’s point guard.

Greg Monroe creates a similar problem to Carter-Williams. Like MCW, Monroe needs the ball in his hands in order to score. In fact, Monroe has run as the first or second scoring option throughout the entire season, getting the ball in the low-post and being told to score.

Having a low-post bruiser is something that few if any teams around the league possess. However, if Monroe isn’t being utilized to help facilitate and defer for much the game, his effect on the offense may actually be more harmful than helpful to the squad.

Some of these problems which Carter-Williams and Monroe bring can be addressed by a change in approach. After all, under Joe Prunty’s guide, the Bucks were playing much better basketball, especially on offense.

It’s also unfair for both guys to field all of the blame for the team’s struggles. The entire squad has contributed to the mess we’ve seen on the court.

However, two major things seem unlikely to change: Monroe’s defensive ability and Carter-Williams lack of floor-spacing. These weaknesses are not something that can be fixed by work in the gym or repetition. They’re permanent traits of how these two guys play.

Few players who’ve lacked a shot have ever developed into respectable shooters. For every Kawhi Leonard, there are five Josh Smiths. Thus, the odds of Carter-Williams developing into an off-ball spot up shooter are slim to none.

In addition, what you see with Monroe is what you get. You can’t teach lateral quickness.

Given these major issues, the Bucks are faced with two choices in the coming days:

Option one is to keep the team in place and hope that some major changes occur during the off-season. This would require the development of better on-court chemistry and serious growth from players on both sides of the floor. The risk with this approach is that it doesn’t recognize the likelihood that Carter-Williams and Monroe’s limitations are permanent, and if the team doesn’t get better next year, they’ll lose both of those guys for next to nothing.

The second option the Bucks face is trading both Carter-Williams and Monroe now. Though it would prohibit us from seeing if this team can really develop into something next season, it would allow the Bucks to entertain more desirable options for rebuilding. After all, the team would be better off with a defensive anchor and low usage off-ball point guard who can shoot than carry on with the guys they have now.

Right now, the team is bereft of talent outside of Antetokounmpo and Middleton. Parker could still develop into an elite player, but that’s far from a sure thing at this point. By moving Carter-Williams and Monroe now, the Bucks could collect numerous assets which would allow them to seriously retool their squad.

Given the horrible production we’ve seen from the bench, the Bucks will need to recreate their entire second unit this off-season. By trading both guys, the Bucks could pick up a couple of draft picks which would allow them to retool their line-up and their bench. Relying on free agency alone would be a foolish risk, especially since every team in the league will have cap space this off-season and the asking price for guys will be at an all-time high.

Moving both guys would also give their core three to have a lot more touches on offense, allowing the team to see just how good Antetokounmpo, Middleton, and Parker can be on offense. After all, Antetokounmpo and Parker seem to play best when they have the ball in their hands.

A third, indirect benefit of trading both is it would allow the Bucks to lose more games, giving them a higher pick and potentially a better talent in this summer’s draft.

Of course, the offers which come in will greatly influence which option the team picks. Moving these guys for next to nothing would make their decision to stay the course a lot easier.

However, given these limitations, and the potential costs associated with doing nothing this off-season, now is the time to move Carter-Williams and Monroe.

Next: Milwaukee Bucks' Three-Point Contest History

The writing’s on the wall.