Milwaukee Bucks Roundtable: Round 1 – Boston Celtics

How would you grade the Bucks’ regular season, and how does it leave you feeling about the team heading into the playoffs?

Leander Wallace (@LeanderWallace): I would give the Bucks a B- for the season. Honestly, I want to go lower because the year has been extremely frustrating for the majority of the year with the regular season finale being a microcosm of that.

The Bucks have made some decisions with assets that have been questionable, and even when Milwaukee has won you have never felt like they were a legitimate contender in the East. If a team with one of the best players in the league on it, a healthy Khris Middleton, and Eric Bledsoe, plus other contributors who were in and out of the lineup, can’t do better than a seven seed in the East it makes you wonder what the major problem is with this team.

This point, however, brings me to the positive side of things and the reasons that I didn’t grade the season out lower. I believe the biggest threat to the growth of this team was taken care of. Jason Kidd was not the right coach for this team. Joe Prunty is not the guy either but nobody is under the impression that he will be the coach next year.

So, while there is still a lot of negativity among Bucks’ twitter toward the front office, I have to say that I don’t know very many people who expected the Bucks to make a move on Kidd when they did. A lot of people thought that the relationship that Kidd had forged with the owners would keep his job. So, credit is due.

Also, the Bucks are still in the playoffs and have a legitimate shot to make some noise due to the Celtics’ injuries. While they will not be the favorite, I don’t think many would be shocked to see the Bucks take this series seven games or even win it. That in itself would be a positive step.

So, while this season was frustrating for everyone, the major move that needed to happen did happen and the Bucks are a solid coaching choice away from being dangerous in the future.

Rohan Katti (@rkattijr): I would give this season a C+ for the Milwaukee Bucks. This has been an incredibly tumultuous season, even by Bucks’ standards.

For a majority of the season, there was the dark cloud of Jason Kidd looming over the Bucks, and even when that resolved, the team had issues and continues to have issues regarding playing style and culture.

On the bright side, this season brought the polarizing, yet extremely talented player in Eric Bledsoe, the departure of Jason Kidd, the return of Jabari Parker, and, most importantly, the continued ascension of Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Given all of that, I still do not feel particularly ecstatic about the playoffs because of how much Milwaukee has underachieved this season. That’s not to say that I will not be excited, but this season had so much more potential. Rather than being a top-four seed in the Eastern Conference like many (including myself) had expected, the Bucks were a Wizards win away from being the eighth seed.

Ryan Riley (@rynrly): C. As mentioned above, this season has been a highly frustrating one for Bucks fans to sit through. While the team’s overall record has made a small step forward, the team’s play is still mired deep with the same confusing mistakes on and off the floor.

While the move to fire Jason Kidd during the season certainly eased some fears, the Bucks still currently retain the same staff that surrounded him. This has largely caused the team to still send the same product out on the floor to less than desired results. Questionable asset management and player development has caused the same questions to be posed about this team regardless of which direction they go in terms of coaching staff.

The end result doesn’t look half-bad on paper. Milwaukee has managed to avoid the dreaded eighth seed, and finished with a winning record. But between the lines, we can identify old familiar symptoms.

Ben Sewell (@Pencil2292): C-. This season as a whole certainly had many positives if you look closely enough, but as a whole, should be considered yet another wasted year of Giannis’ potential.

Winning huge games in Boston and Portland earlier in the season and putting themselves inside the top-four post Bledsoe trade, generated a lot of hope and positivity around the team. But unfortunately, the Bucks then started to pull the same old tricks they’ve become quite accustomed to in recent times and began putting several poor performances together in a row to dash everyone’s hopes and dreams.

I honestly cannot remember watching a bigger choke than that Denver Nuggets game earlier this month, which rather typified the year Milwaukee has had. They shot out of the blocks well and soon followed it up by some poor play and high-school grade errors to let their opponents back into the game and ultimately lost it in overtime.

In terms of the playoffs, I have zero expectations that the Bucks can knock off the Celtics. Man for man, the Bucks are the far superior team, but Boston’s ace in the hole, Brad Stevens will have them geared and ready to fire right from the opening tip.

Should the Bucks win this series with Boston missing two All Stars? Yes. Will they? Who knows. Never trust the Bucks.

Matt Henriksen (@matthenriksen): I’ve got a friendly B for the Bucks this season. I’m grading on a bit of curve here, keeping in mind that they dealt with a mid-season coaching change and some depth-sapping injuries.

As with most teams that don’t suck, the Bucks had some great wins and some really frustrating losses this season. Their struggles against teams like Miami and Indiana were probably the negative outcomes that bothered me most. Opponents like that just highlighted the Bucks’ tendency to play worse than the sum of their parts.

I needed a couple days to move past the loss at Philly to close the regular season, but now that the playoffs are here and the Bucks are at peak health, I’m feeling pretty good about this team. My heart has not been hardened, and I’m ready for this team to hurt me again.

William Wang (@willwang_bucks): C-. The Bucks failed to meet expectations. Expectations this season were at least fifth seed in the East for a squad led by Giannis and returning the same key players as last year. Fourth seed was also a reasonable hope, with just the Cavaliers, Raptors, Celtics, and Wizards looking like real obstacles.

However, the Bucks finished with the seventh seed. In terms of net rating, the Bucks actually fell from 16th in the NBA last year with a 0.0 rating to 20th in the NBA this year with a -0.3 rating.

The organization took steps toward improving their team, trading for Eric Bledsoe and firing Jason Kidd, but the positive effects were not felt this year. Most importantly, the fundamental issues remain. The defense continued to misapply aggression and suffer numerous breakdowns. The offense never synergized beyond the sum of its parts, performing well on the backs of the stars but failing to maximize their collective talents.

Heading into the playoffs, in many ways the team actually looks like a good bet to take down the Celtics, but it is hard to trust the Bucks to execute consistently and well enough to win in a full series.

Adam McGee (@AdamMcGee11): C-. Having reached a point where there’s a sense of needing to celebrate the chance of winning a series because an objectively better team have been hit by injuries, it’s fair to say the Bucks have been a big disappointment this season.

It’s a testament to the talent of some of their players, most notably Giannis, that they finished with a winning record and not too far off a season that could have been viewed as expectations, but that also hints at the problem. The Bucks can be truly spectacular when they find top gear, yet they spend more time producing baffling results and performances over the course of an 82-game season.

There are plenty of positives to take forward, particularly as a new coach will come in and have a chance to finally give the Bucks an identity, and a system that could even play to their strengths. Giannis continues to reach new heights and his supporting cast far from incapable.

That’s good reason to be excited for the future, and also frustrated that this season hasn’t amounted to something more consistently positive.