Milwaukee Bucks Face Critical Off-Season
By Dan Larsen
Though the Milwaukee Bucks are still some ways away from contending for a title, but this off-season is crucial in getting the team to where they want to go.
The NBA playoffs are in full-swing. However, things are also beginning to heat up for the Milwaukee Bucks.
From planning for the draft, which is just a few weeks away, to making decisions regarding free agents and player personnel, the Bucks have a lot of difficult questions to address once the NBA Playoffs conclude.
The Bucks may be a few years away from seriously contending for a title. However, the importance of this off-season cannot be overstated. If the Milwaukee Bucks want to reach their full potential and contend for an NBA title in three years, they need to have an effective off-season this summer.
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As of right now, the Bucks have three potential All-Star to superstar type players on the team in Khris Middleton, Jabari Parker, and Giannis Antetokounmpo. No team, including the Minnesota Timberwolves, boasts a better young core of guys than the Bucks have.
Outside of these guys, however, the roster is really lacking. The Bucks have only a few effective players here and there.
Miles Plumlee is a solid center and should be retained as at least a secondary center. Tyler Ennis has shown flashes of being an effective back-up point and may be worth keeping around for one more season. Jerryd Bayless, a free agent, also worked as an effective “three-and-D” point guard, something the team really needs with Antetokounmpo and Parker on the floor. Thus, retaining him at the right price may be worth it.
Outside of this, however, the roster is nothing short of a disaster. Whether it’s because the guys the team have don’t fit (Michael Carter-Williams and Greg Monroe), can’t stay healthy (John Henson, O.J. Mayo), or are just aren’t that good (Johnny O’Bryant), the Bucks have a lot of maneuvering to do if they want to get into Eastern Conference Playoffs next season.
Getting a solid supporting cast is going to be key to the long term success of this team. Two of the remaining teams in the playoffs provide examples of what could happen if the Bucks do or do not make the right moves this off-season.
On one side of the ledger, you have the Golden State Warriors. The team, through the draft, acquired two of the best guards in the NBA in Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. However, the Warriors were far from being an all-time great team for the first three seasons that the two played together.
Underrated moves made over the course of three years helped craft the Warriors into the machine they are today. Whether it was acquiring Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston in free agency and making them the first guys off the bench, moving Monta Ellis for Andrew Bogut, a defensive anchor and effective pick-and-roll guy, or drafting Festis Ezeli, Draymond Green, and Harrison Barnes, the Warriors seem to have made all the right moves to craft a historically great team.
Some of this can be chalked up to luck. Even the best general managers miss from time to time in the draft, and talented players fail to gel for a variety of reasons. A large part of the credit also belongs to Steve Kerr as he’s developed a scheme that’s gotten Golden State to reach its true ceiling.
However, the Warriors moves also show that, if you make the right moves now, the Bucks could have the supporting cast to help Antetokounmpo, Middleton, and Parker get to the NBA Finals when their time comes.
On the other side of the ledger you have the Oklahoma City Thunder. Though they’ve had a great deal of success, the team has never quite reached it’s ceiling.
Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are, and have been, among the league’s best 10-15 players for the past five years. Yet, in that span, the Thunder have only made one NBA finals appearance.
Some of this has been because the team has had bad luck with injuries. In the previous two seasons, the Thunder were without Kevin Durant (foot in 2014-15) or Russell Westbrook (Knee in 2013-14) for nearly the entirety of their playoff run.
However, much of it can also be explained by the lack of a supporting cast the Thunder have had.
The Thunder have never really had better than average supporting players with the one exception of Serge Ibaka. They’ve not had an effective two guard since trading James Harden, rotating through the likes of Thabo Sefolosha, Andre Roberson, Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb, and Dion Waiters. Until this season, they never really had effective centers, keeping Kendrick Perkins far longer than any team should have. They’ve also struggled to find the right fits to back-up Durant and Westbrook.
The Thunder are the cautionary tale of what may happen if the Bucks DON’T begin to make the right moves this off-season. The Thunder have still had a great deal of success and been very competitive in the Western Conference. However, few if any fans or pundits would have expected Oklahoma City to still be without a title this many years into Durant and Westbrook’s careers.
These comparisons aren’t to say that the Bucks core three guys will ever reach the levels that Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, and Russell Westbrook have reached. Curry has had two of the greatest seasons of all-time and Kevin Durant is one of the greatest scorers of all-time. As good as Antetokounmpo and Parker looked at times this year, they still have a long ways to go before they crack the top 20 best players in the NBA (though Giannis is certainly close).
However, the potential is there for the Bucks to have two superstar players with a third all-star in Middleton. Not many other young teams in the league can claim that.
One off-season won’t take this team from the lottery to the top of the NBA. However, an effective off-season this year could begin the process of getting the Bucks into a position to contend when Parker and Antetokounmpo are beginning to enter into their primes. That is why this off-season is critical for the Milwaukee Bucks.
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If the Milwaukee Bucks want to #OwnTheFuture, they need to begin building their supporting cast now.