Before the Milwaukee Bucks‘ painful overtime loss to the Phoenix Suns Monday night, general manager Jon Horst made a rare appearance with local media.
As you can watch in full here, which comes courtesy of the Bucks’ YouTube channel, Horst touched on numerous topics regarding the current state of the team with less than one month until the end of the regular season. And he’s currently been busy in overseeing the Bucks’ roster evolve and change near and after the trade deadline.
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On the topic of the Bucks’ additions of P.J. Tucker and Jeff Teague, Horst discussed what he and his front office wanted to do in filling out the Bucks’ roster and the skill sets that both Tucker and Teague bring to the table:
"“I think we’re trying to evaluate what has worked and what hasn’t worked throughout the regular season up to it. P.J. Tucker was a target for us. If you look at the ways we’ve improved defensively, credit to Bud and his staff, we’ve tried a lot of different things. We’re playing some zone, we’re switching, which we call our ‘red,’ we’re doing that a lot more often than we have. And so, we wanted to give coach as many options and tools as possible to be flexible and to adjust and to do things differently.P.J., I think, is one of the best individual defenders in our league. When you talk about switching defenses, his IQ, his ability to guard multiple positions. I think really guard 1-4, even 1-5. You saw the other night chasing down Lou Williams in an ISO situation and then a few possessions later, guarding Clint Capela on a post up situation. I think that’s a great example of how he can help us, really help us defensively and his ability to hold the defense and keep them consistent in the corners. The way he gets to the corners and has made corner threes at a high level throughout his career was all a big focus for us.And then Jeff Teague. Obviously with the P.J. Tucker deal and being down a backup point guard, Jeff was a primary focus for us to go and really stabilize us in the second unit and has the ability to make shots. Jeff’s got some size to him and as you saw the dunk the other night, he’s got some pop left in his legs. I think, for us, we really couldn’t be happier the way we came out of the trade deadline and the buyout market in terms of how we hopefully finished out this roster.”"
Jon Horst assuaged concerns over Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo
Over the course of Horst’s 32-minute availability, the 38-year-old discussed the trials and challenges that have come with playing in such a condensed season and the absences they’ve faced, with the most recent example being Giannis Antetokounmpo. Antetokounmpo recently returned from a six-game absence, the longest stretch of being sidelined throughout his eight-year career, after dealing with what was deemed as left knee soreness and recently talked about the challenges of being away from the court.
When asked if he and the team still have concerns over Antetokounmpo and his knee moving forward this season, Horst made it clear that’s far from the case:
"“Not at all. This is something we’ve dealt with and been through before. We have a great plan in place, we have a great medical staff in place and I think most importantly, we have an incredible compliant, hard-working, serious individual that has the circumstance that he knows how to deal with it. And he has a lot of confidence in dealing with it as well. So not at all."
Horst further detailed his role in the ongoing management of Antetokounmpo’s knee and body overall, given the latter’s history and durability, and how it has mirrored his 2017-18 campaign:
"“Like we did in year five, we feel very confident that we have a great plan in place and obviously, he’s back on the court playing now. It takes a lot of commitment, a lot of work from him, but we know how to deal with this, manage it and really resolve it and have it be in the background.I think my role is just to be that connector and that communicator. I’m obviously not going to make any medical decisions. Sometimes, Bud and I really do have to talk to Giannis and really help him understand why it’s important not to play at different times because that’s one of the harder things. The guy loves to play every minute and that’s what makes him special. But at the end of the day, it’s keeping everyone on the same page, having the right conversations. Sometimes hard conversations, sometimes easy, but just being connected on it and really working on it together.”"
As he touched on a multitude of topics throughout his media availability, we’ll cover more from what all stood out in Horst’s comments in the coming days.