The Milwaukee Bucks have a superstar talent in Giannis Antetokounmpo, a burgeoning team culture based on hard work and unselfishness, and the team just scared the Toronto Raptors in a thrilling six-game series. So why is the fanbase so uneasy?
“THE BUCKS NEED MORE TALENT.”
I’ve heard this refrain ad nauseam in recent weeks and months. While it might be true in the strictest sense (I mean which team, except the Warriors perhaps, doesn’t need more talent?), I find the blind panic that seems to have engulfed the fan-base intriguing.
The team just finished an encouraging run to the playoffs in what had seemed at one point a lost season. The Bucks have gotten past the first round of the playoffs just once in the last twenty seven years. Once. Giannis Antetokounmpo, the team’s first transcendent superstar since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar left Milwaukee over 40 years ago, is just 22-years-old.
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Given the lack of playoff success the team has enjoyed in recent decades, and how frighteningly good the Greek Freak is, the fanbase should be basking in a future they couldn’t possibly have imagined when they plucked a skinny teenager from right under the noses of 14 other franchises in 2013.
Those writers, and there have been some smart ones, asking existential questions about where the team is going ignore the unfailing uncertainty of the NBA. The Bucks questions seem never-ending:
- Will Jabari Parker ever get healthy enough to realize his Charles Barkley 2.0 potential on offense?
- Even If healthy, can Parker become an average defender?
- Does Malcolm Brogdon top out as anything more than a solid rotation player?
- Was Thon Maker’s rookie promise just fool’s gold?
- Will the team live to regret Tony Snell’s $44 million contract?
- Is the ownership situation as shaky as the GM search suggested?
This all sounds apocalyptic and counterintuitive to where I’m going with this article, that is until you really stop to think about the rest of the league’s marquee names too. To name the trials and tribulations of but a few:
Oklahoma City Thunder: Can the team retain Russell Westbrook? Paul George? Is Andre Roberson a long-term noose around the team’s offense? Is Enes Kanter worth keeping if he’s unplayable against the league’s best teams?
Minnesota Timberwolves: Is Andrew Wiggins really that good? How will the team space the floor with two ball-dominant/average-shooting wings and a non-shooting starting power forward? Is Tom Thibodeau going Doc Rivers on the team and just recreating the Eastern Conference out West?
San Antonio Spurs: Kawhi Leonard on an ageing Island with Wilson (Gregg Popovich)
New Orleans Pelicans: Do Boogie and the ‘Brow actually make sense together? Was paying Jrue Holiday one giant $126 million mistake? How can the team put enough shooting around their star big men to make the offense work?
Washington Wizards: How much upward mobility does the team have with both Otto Porter and Ian Mahinmi’s ungodly contracts on the books? Is John Wall even going to take that super-max?
Boston Celtics: Is the team building for now or the future? How bright is that future with Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum? Does the team really want to be on the hook for $40 million of a 5’9″ point guard?
I just named teams with half the league’s elite, upcoming talent. Some, such as Boston, have avenues to answer those questions. Some, such as the Pelicans, are rather limited.
The Anthony Davis’ Pelicans and the early-LeBron James Cleveland Cavaliers are textbook examples of what the Bucks’ should not do.
Simply put, what lost the Cavaliers LeBron James the first time round was not The King’s selfishness or any other insult onlookers might have tossed his way at the time. It was the Cavs’ short-sightedness. Myopia. A blind panic on the part of management, but facilitated by the fans and media, that the clock was ticking. We have to compete now.
The Cavs held on to Zydrunas Ilgauskas too long, drafted terribly both before and after James arrived (DeSagana Diop anyone?), made one head-scratching/desperation move after another (Shaquille O’Neal three years too late, Ben Wallace, traded picks). In short, the Cavs were a poorly run organization propped up by an all-time great on the rise.
The Davis’ Pelicans have been similarly mis-managed. The Pelicans struck gold when they won the right to draft Davis in 2012. Rather than incubate Davis, bottom out as much as possible and build for a brighter future, the team clamoured for overpriced veterans and mis-matched parts. No player embodies the team’s flawed approach more than Omer Asik. Signed in 2015, the lumbering Turkish big remains on the team’s books for another two years, with almost $25 million guaranteed.
The Bucks have John Henson’s horrific deal to contend with, but at least the majority of the team’s committed money is directed at productive players that mesh well together.
Contenders are nurtured, not manufactured (for the most part anyway). Just look at how the Warriors, the star-laden juggernaut laying waste to Adam Silver’s baby, were built. The Bucks need to develop their existing talent, try to get off bad money as best they can and stay flexible. Each season should bring a new goal. In 2017-18 it’s the second round. That’s it for now.
The Bucks’ have what every team covets: a bonafide megastar. There are but a few in the league at any one time. Relax, Bucks fans. The sky isn’t falling.
Next: Thon Maker working out with Giannis Antetokounmpo is good for the Milwaukee Bucks
Let the click-bait morons put Giannis on the clock, and beware of further fueling an atmosphere of blind panic that could lead him elsewhere. Even with a deadline in sight, the Bucks still have time to make things work, and a superstar capable of papering over some of the cracks.