Milwaukee Bucks: Former executive shares insight on burning fan questions

Due to the Milwaukee Bucks‘ slow start to the season, largely because of some severely poor injury luck, some big questions have been on the minds of Bucks fans to begin this season.

Granted, one of the big questions started before the season but another one has come up due to an important member of the starting unit missing most of the season to this point. Of course, I’m talking about the debate between Grayson Allen and Donte DiVincenzo on which player should be in the starting lineup once DiVincenzo returns from injury as well as the concern around the Bucks’ rebounding woes without Brook Lopez and whether or not they should address it by adding another big.

I’ve written relatively recently about the Allen or DiVincenzo debate as well as a few names the Bucks could look at down the line as stopgap options should they decide they need them. But instead of re-reading me tell you how to feel, how about checking in with former Bucks Director of Basketball Research, NBA analyst at The Athletic, and author of The Midrange Theory, Seth Partnow.

I spoke with him recently about bias in player evaluation among other things upon the release of his new book (which I highly recommend pre-ordering), but I also had to get his thoughts on these hot button issues among Bucks fans.

Seth Partnow gives his thoughts on a couple of big questions surrounding the Milwaukee Bucks

Let’s start with the Allen or DiVincenzo debate, which has only become more heated the more Allen continues to shoot well and put up big numbers. He’s fit in very nicely alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo and looks like a strong candidate to keep a firm hold on the starting job once DiVincenzo returns.

It’s clear the Bucks had confidence in him immediately when they signed him to a contract extension before he had even played a regular-season game for the team, but it’s looking like a good move at the moment. But how would Partnow assess the fit of both players?

"“If you’re talking about long-term, going forward, team-has-championship-aspirations? I don’t know if we have any real evidence either way on how Grayson Allen will compare to Donte DiVincenzo … There is a pretty decently high bar to clear, assuming that is the player who still exists after his injury.”"

I’ve said that fans have been very quick to write off DiVincenzo this season as an option in the starting lineup. It seems as though they have forgotten how well he played on defense last season and was a key contributor for them at that end of the floor. That being said, Allen is a better offensive player and that is what the Bucks need at the moment. “With who’s available for the Bucks right now,” Partnow explains. “The fact that Grayson Allen is a solid, more dynamic offensive player, he’s more useful right now than Donte would be. But the team the Bucks are putting on the floor right now isn’t good enough to matter anyway.”

There will certainly be people who definitively say one way or the other, but what Partnow says is true, there is very little evidence that we have at the moment to tell us for sure that Allen is a better fit with the usual starters than DiVincenzo is.

Allen’s shooting and off-the-dribble burst have been much needed without, at times, three of their four usual starters but will that matter when he’s with those guys? That could be something you want with a second unit when there isn’t as much creation juice on the floor.

The other topic du jour is that of the rebounding woes that have plagued the Bucks with Brook Lopez missing most of the season with a back injury. It has caused some wonky frontcourt lineups, especially when Bobby Portis missed games at the beginning of the season.

It has caused Bucks fans to scour the free-agent and trade markets for a serviceable big man to help stop the bleeding, but is there even anyone out there that could be acquired to fill that need, Seth?

"“I don’t know if there’s a player that they can add easily that makes it so that if Brook is not available for a playoff series, they’re not just kind of done. That die has sort of been cast. I feel like yeah, you could get a stopgap now that would help regular season games. But for a team in the Bucks situation, the rubric I like is ‘ok, what does this guy look like in the second round or later in the playoffs?’ That should be the only decision that really matters.”"

The names I pitched, and the names Dalton pitched via free agency, would all be in the sort of “stopgap to win regular-season games” bin. There isn’t a guy who the Bucks could feasibly get that would be able to take over Lopez’s role if he were to be out long, long term.

That is also the worst-case scenario for the Bucks and something that, as Partnow mentions, they’d just be sort of screwed at that point without Lopez anyway. But the idea that the Bucks (and fans) should only be considering players that can help them in the second round of the playoffs or later is a good one.

There’s no point in wasting resources on a player that won’t be able to give you any help in a pinch in the playoffs. The Bucks are quite clearly a championship-or-bust team for the foreseeable future, so all of their moves need to revolve around who can help them in the postseason.

The future of the center position is something that fans have been slowly begun to fret about as they’ve seen what potential life without Lopez looks like. But for now, the only concern is about getting Lopez healthy and surviving the games without him.