Milwaukee Bucks: Expectations are no longer set by Jason Kidd

By Adam McGee | Dec 28, 2017

MILWAUKEE, WI - DECEMBER 06: (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images) /

Jason Kidd recently bemoaned the level of expectations surrounding the Milwaukee Bucks, but they’re just one of many factors of no longer under his control.

Following a second home loss to the lottery-bound Chicago Bulls in the span of 11 days, Milwaukee Bucks head coach Jason Kidd took a moment to discuss the expectations surrounding his team.

As the season slowly edges toward its halfway mark in Kidd’s fourth year with the Bucks, Milwaukee find themselves seventh in the Eastern Conference standings and just one game ahead of the ninth placed New York Knicks.

Kidd pointed to his team’s youth and inexperience as a potential cause for their continued slip-ups, and when asked about when youth would no longer be an acceptable excuse for his team, he responded:

"“We’re not learning about it, it’s the truth. You guys can write that we’re a super team and that we’re really good and we’ve got the ‘Big 3’ or the ‘Brew 3.’ We’re a young team that’s learning how to play the game at a high level with expectations that are a little bit too high. Understanding that no one in that locker room has ever won, so we’re learning how to win as a team.”"

Even looking past the fact that nobody is comparing the Bucks to the league’s best super teams in their present form, and that Matthew Dellavedova, Jason Terry and indeed, Kidd, himself, have all won NBA championships as players, we eventually arrive at the head coach’s problematic note on expectations.

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Like with any team outside of the NBA’s obvious top-tier of contenders, it’s hard to pinpoint any kind of consensus expectation for the Bucks this season.

The simplest way of describing the expectation of most fans, analysts and observers in regard to the Bucks is likely that they should at least qualify to be classified as a “good” team — whatever that is — and show continued progress toward their ultimate goals of winning a championship.

Milwaukee won 42 games last season, lost a competitive first round series against a staple of the Eastern Conference playoffs in recent years, and have already demonstrated signs of internal individual improvement this season, as well as making roster moves to further improve their overall prospects.

As a result, the Bucks should be better this season than they were last year, and at the very minimum that has to be the yardstick they’re measured against.

The problem with Kidd weighing in on his team’s expectations is the potential implication that he believes that’s a matter he has the authority to determine and regulate, or indeed a factor he should feel hard done by. In professional sports, beyond all of the intricacies and demands of the position, the primary function of the head coach is to meet expectations.

If a team is to be viewed as successful, the coach needs their team to perform at a level that’s satisfactory to the team’s various stakeholders. In pleasing the owners, the fans, the players and the sponsors, the reality is that expectations of the team are always dictated by elements outside of the coach’s control.

In Milwaukee, for example, the biggest factor driving expectations for the team is Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Bucks boast a potentially generational talent, and with players of that ilk, teams have to produce to avoid wasting that golden opportunity.

After 30 games this season, Giannis Antetokounmpo boasts a PER of 30.7, second only to James Harden. Although PER is a flawed statistic in many ways, it’s useful for providing historical context for individual achievement.

If Antetokounmpo can maintain or improve on his current rating over the remainder of the season, he will join a list of players who’ve managed a PER of 30.7 or better while playing over 50 games in a single season. Currently, that list contains just 13 other entries, and the achievements of the group are pretty considerable.

The players to achieve that feat are LeBron James (four times), Michael Jordan (four times), Wilt Chamberlain (three times), Stephen Curry and Anthony Davis. With games adjusted to the length of an 82 game season, those players’ teams averaged 56.3 wins per season.

Moving on to the playoffs, only on four of those 13 occasions did the team not reach at least the Conference Finals, and only two of those teams didn’t manage to win a first round series.

Based on Antetokounmpo’s play and the Bucks’ own valiant effort in the postseason last year, it only seems fair to expect Milwaukee to win a playoff series this season. In fact, that isn’t even necessarily as lofty as some of the goals laid out from within the organization prior to the season.

When the Bucks lose at home to the Bulls, not once, but twice, it’s more than valid to question whether the team is currently on track to achieve such a feat, though.

While the team’s media day saw Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton hint at the Conference Finals as the team’s goal — even prior to the addition of Eric Bledsoe — and Jason Terry went so far as to mention it explicitly along with ranking in the top-five in both assists and defense, Kidd was eager to discuss the team’s youth in regard to expectation on that occasion too.

In doing so, Kidd also landed on some key points that he’d be well-served in remembering now.

"“I think when you talk about expectations that’s just part of the gig. And for us, we worked extremely hard to put ourselves in this position of the expectations, but being the second youngest team in the league we still have to take steps in the right direction. And that’s being accountable, playing hard, protecting your teammates and having fun. If we can do those things, it will take care of the expectations.”"

The Bucks aren’t doing those things by Kidd’s own account, as he frequently mourns a lack of energy and effort in defeats. With that being the case, the question has to turn to why they aren’t achieving those goals.

Expectations are part of the gig, and they’re not taking care of themselves.

Next: Milwaukee Bucks: Comparing Christmas records over past 20 years

If Kidd can’t initiate change to get the team back on course, it may well be the team’s owners who are left to make changes of their own.

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