After a busy offseason, the Milwaukee Bucks are embracing more positional versatility in ways that may go beyond what we’ve seen in the Mike Budenholzer era.
The picture for the Milwaukee Bucks is slowly coming together ahead of the start of the 2020-21 season.
Their 112-102 preseason loss to the Dallas Mavericks Saturday night, one of three dress rehearsals before their season opener against the Boston Celtics on December 23, showed the many new additions they’re starting to integrate at this stage. That goes on top of the chemistry and the familiarity that’s being built internally and off of the Bucks’ cornerstones.
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With their hunger to contend for a title higher than ever, the fundamental changes the Bucks experienced over the offseason will make for a different regular season campaign than we’ve come to expect in the Mike Budenholzer era. And it gives them a chance to experiment in ways they hadn’t previously done.
As D.J. Augustin discussed Sunday afternoon during his availability with reporters, the veteran guard discussed the positionless versatility that has been a main theme during camp and practice as he and his new teammates get acclimated in Milwaukee:
"“The way were playing this year, the way coach wants to play this year, it’s like nobody really has a position. It’s positionless…That’s just the way we’re playing it this year and it’s definitely harder for guys. You have to know every position…you just got to be able to know every spot on the floor and that’s part of being a professional and knowing your role.”"
While much of the positionless stylings and terminology that Augustin referred to over his 10-and-a-half minute availability points to the adjustments he’s facing in his move to Milwaukee, it does speak to the team wanting to return to its roots that set once Budenholzer arrived. Albeit with a different look than the last couple of seasons.
For the Milwaukee Bucks to truly compete for an NBA title this season, being able to play to the core tenets of their system is vital.
After all, some of the biggest factors that had played in the Bucks’ downfall during each of their last two playoff runs is that their execution and overall plan of attack grew stale.
Part of that came down to the personnel the Bucks had on their roster and the ineffectiveness of some of their more leading stars, whether it be Giannis Antetokounmpo playing well below his MVP-like standard or Eric Bledsoe’s playoff failures. Some of that came down to the system itself and tasking players into roles that ran counter to their respective skill sets.
All of that fueled the Bucks’ push to shore up their playmaking, shooting and overall shot creation abilities, which they did throughout the draft, free agency and in their blockbuster acquisition of Jrue Holiday.
Being able to ask multiple players to be able to make plays and hit shots all over the floor requires multi-dimensional players to do exactly that. The irony of last year’s Bucks team is that their defined roles and lack of flexibility turned out to be their biggest liability during the postseason, along with the aforementioned factors.
Now whether we’ll see the same tendencies and variability on the defensive end may be the biggest question, given how much Budenholzer has held to their drop-back defensive scheme. That same scheme has prioritized blocking off the rim at incredibly stingy levels, but Milwaukee’s opponents have been able to crack it by launching away from three at a league-leading rate in each of the last two seasons.
Ultimately, the old adage goes that necessity is the mother of invention, or in this case, reinvention. If the Bucks are able to learn their lessons from their recent playoff failures months down the line, the infusion of more skills and multi-faceted players will loom as a big reason why that will be so.