If they haven’t already, there will come a point when the Milwaukee Bucks realize their best hope of succeeding is by marching to the sound of their own drum.
The Milwaukee Bucks are a team with a lot of promise, but in their current incarnation they remain very much flawed.
There’s a chance that many of their issues will improve as a young roster matures, but if the Bucks truly want to reach their full potential, they’ll need to be proactive in their pursuit of perfecting their own style.
There’s no linear path to success in the NBA, but to be a truly transcendent team it takes more than generational talent. There needs to be a touch of innovation and a willingness to develop and subsequently own your own style.
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It’s not an easy task to reinvent the wheel, yet nobody has tried harder in recent years than the recently resigned Sam Hinkie.
Hinkie’s approach to his work as the general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers meant he was a divisive figure in NBA communities. He became the NBA’s facilitator. If you’d a bad contract you needed to move, you’d call Philadelphia.
Hinkie was only really interested in maximizing his assets and as he would have seen it, giving his team the maximum number of opportunities to succeed.
Whether you approved of how his team consistently bottomed out to follow this aim, whether or not you feel the approach will ultimately lead to success for the Sixers, you can’t deny that Hinkie was at least paving his own path in pursuit of success.
In an era when it’s easy to be mediocre that decision speaks its own volumes. Hinkie’s resignation was punctuated by a 13 page letter that he sent to the 76ers ownership on Wednesday, and there was some sentiment in there that should be applied to Milwaukee’s own development process.
Under the section of his letter subheaded “A contrarian mindset“, Hinkie explored the challenges of standing out from the crowd in the NBA:
"“If you want to have real success you have to very often be willing to do something different from the herd.”"
He continues:
"“The same 82 games are up for grabs every year for every team. Just like in 1985 (or before). To get more wins, you’re going to have to take them from someone else. Wins are a zerogrowth industry (how many of you regularly choose to invest in those?), and the only way up is to steal share from your competitors. You will have to do something different. You will have to be contrarian.”"
This is a school of thought that’s hard to dispute too.
The landscape of the NBA is built on two different types of adjustments. There are those teams who will look to make the necessary adjustments to fit in and compete with the team at the forefront of the league’s great changes, and then there are those who look to get out ahead of that crowded midfield and be the initiators of the next big shift.
The Bucks are well positioned to fall into that second category, if they choose.
Letting Giannis Antetokounmpo run the point is the first step in the Bucks deciding who they really want to be. Even if it was an increasingly logical move, it remained bold to revisit the Point Giannis experiment. What should be even more exciting for the team than the nature in which he has thrived in the role, is the potential butterfly effect it could have as he continues to develop.
As Antetokounmpo improves, how are those reactive teams around the league going to adjust to cover a near 7’0″ point guard? You’re not going to find guys with that size, skill and mobility very often.
It’s the equivalent of the mismatch nightmare that teams facing the Warriors have had to plan for, although covering Giannis at point guard may even be an even bigger challenge than finding a center to match up with Draymond Green.
Point Giannis is the ground floor for the Bucks future, now it’s all about where they go from here.
Do they look to become a three-point shooting team to keep pace with most of the league? Do they stick with their principles on defense, or abandon them in favor of a philosophy that may offer a different look again? Do they need a small guard or another wing? What type of center should they have?
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The answers to these questions can’t be a byproduct of what works for Golden State or San Antonio, the Bucks need to learn what works for them and use it to their advantage.