Milwaukee Bucks Fans Sound Off: Bench Contributors – Week 1
What if you didn’t have to wade through page after page to find the best Milwaukee Bucks comments? Well, now you don’t! Welcome to Bench Contributors.
Welcome to the inaugural Bench Contributors, a collection of the best of the rest. This is a space to shine a spotlight on contributions from fans in comment sections and forums all over the Bucks blogosphere. I scoured countless threads and comments looking for especially insightful additions, and compiled them here with a few notes of my own.
Before you get mad, please understand — this is celebration! After all, I’m an internet commenter too.
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Recently the Bucks officially added both Kyle Korver and Dragan Bender, and of course Bucks fans had more than a few things to say. Public opinion on both moves was largely positive, and so I found a few things that summed that up nicely.
Brew Hoop commenter retired janitor had this to say about Kyle Korver and whether he would be able to see enough minutes to make an impact without getting run off the floor playing defense:
"“Ray Allen played with LeBron at ages 37 and 38. And if I remember correctly, he hit a few big 3’s. Korver is a has a playoff career 39.1 3pt%. Even on a really good Utah team last year he had their 6th best +1.8 on/off. For his career, he has a +3.8 on/off and then takes it up a notch and has had a playoff +6.4 on/off. I know he struggled last year in the playoffs, but with our drop zone his vet savvy might find a way in certain match ups to cobble up some productive minutes. But for me, what I like about this move it illustrates how committed Horst is in surrounding Giannis with high integrity, smart, spacers who want to be here. The fact that it appears Giannis was in on the recruiting shows the partnership Giannis and Horst are forming. His impact might be more Gasol-like, but that is just fine for a 13th guy. Imagine what shooting practice is going to be like. I really liked our team yesterday, and we might have gotten even a little better today.”"
I thought the comparison for Korver to late-career Ray Allen was particularly apt. They also did a nice job tying the signing back to Giannis in a way that’s deeper than shooters simply being good to play with him.
Speaking of Giannis, a discussion broke out on Reddit’s /r/mkebucks about whether or not Giannis needs to develop a midrange shot to counteract the defense the Raptors employed against him, and /u/OrneryZookeperGame7 had this to say:
"“Giannis getting some ability for short mid range shots and hook shots on his post-ups would be great. The biggest problem for Giannis vs. Toronto was them going all in on stopping his drives and him not being as effective vs. double teams in the post. Obviously a kick out pass is preferable to a mid range shot, but having the option of the bailout from mid range would be great. Bucks halfcourt offense was pretty bad in latter two rounds of the playoffs, so getting a better bail out option would be great. Having a Plan B for when running good offense doesn’t work would be good and perhaps a better threat of a righty hook shot would cause defenders to react and open up some looks at the rim for Giannis.”"
What makes this interesting to me is that Giannis has flashed these things already in his career, pulling out the odd fadeaway, turnaround jumper, and especially the hook shot. Zookeeper was smart to point to those things specifically.
The most intriguing move, though, was the signing of Dragan Bender to an exceptionally team-friendly deal below the veteran minimum in terms of guaranteed money. This caught a lot of people by surprise, as many expected the final roster spot now occupied by Bender to go to a third point guard or even to remain unfilled until a tantalizing veteran was bought out by his team. On the RealGM Bucks forum, Chuck Diesel succinctly summed up why the Bucks would be interested in Bender from a risk/reward standpoint:
"“Been accused of Croatian favoritism in the past, but since he’s been in the league I’ve been really down on Bender. Just thought he looked like a guy who didn’t like basketball. That said, this is a great use of a minimum contract. Give the kid his first taste of a stable, first class organization. Put him through Bucks university and see what happens. If he’s going to improve anywhere it’ll be after going up against Giannis every day. Would love to see him soak up a ton of minutes with the Herd as well.”"
Also on RealGM, Ron Swanson gave a statistical outlook on Bender’s value:
"“Of course they tried to play him at PF cuz “Phoenix Suns things”, which probably F’d his development somewhat. Gotta love that Bud-friendly shot chart though. He took only 1.5% of his FGA’s from mid-range. 62% of his FGA’s are from 3PT. And he actually converted 78% of his attempts at the rim last year, albeit small sample size alert. There’s something to work with there at least.”"
I especially like the idea of the shot chart, which seems very similar to Nikola Mirotic to me. Bender is a way’s away from Mirotic in terms of skill, but as Ron said there’s something to work with.
dark. Next. Milwaukee Bucks: Can stellar rebounding improve even further?
As we enter the dregs of the offseason, there will be fewer and fewer things to talk about regarding the Bucks, but rest assured, if there’s quality stuff you folks are putting out there, I’ll find it! See you next week!