Based on the first glimpse of the Milwaukee Bucks' Pete Nance experiment, Jericho Sims may need to start packing his bags. Nance is the floor-spacing, two-way sparkplug that the roster craves in the frontcourt. On offense, Sims simply can't give them that or much of anything else.
If Nance is here to stay, there won't be any minutes left over. Sims didn't have much of a role, anyway, as he faded from favor in Doc Rivers' rotations. We'll have to wait and see, but a cameo in Thursday's loss to the Spurs might have been his final appearance as a Buck.
The Sims excitement didn't last. Nance could be a long-term solution
What the Bucks got from Nance against the Hawks was exactly what they had missed in earlier lineups with Sims. His stat line might not look like much. He scored five points, four rebounds, two assists, and two steals, but he provided a lot more than the numbers reveal.
The Bucks' offense runs so much more smoothly when their bigs have range to space the floor, along with playmaking abilities and athleticism. Nance has the whole package. One way his impact showed up was in the plus-minus column, where he posted a plus-13 in a two-point win.
By contrast, although Sims is athletic and can clean the offensive glass, he doesn't do much else. He fell hard from his high-flying act as a rim runner and lob threat that produced a career night back in early December against Detroit. That game seemed to suggest the Bucks had found a spark to carry forward, or if nothing else, at least a partial answer to their rebounding woes and lack of an interior force. Turns out it was more of a flash in the pan.
While Sims remained a regular for most of the month, it became clear that the Bucks could not rely on him to be a steady contributor. Foul trouble emerged as a major issue, and illegal screens were a nightly occurrence. Sometimes, Sims would be whistled for the violation multiple times, even in limited minutes. As a non-shooting big, screen-setting is an art he cannot afford to mess up.
For a team prone to slow starts and in need of additional scorers, having a blank in Sims kept the offense in handcuffs. Particularly with key pieces on the bench, trotting out Sims was like trying to squeeze useful moves out of a pawn on a chessboard when what you really need is a rook or a bishop. It could be excruciating, and in the end, the team could only take so much. Sims was effectively benched once Giannis returned from injury on December 27.
Nance isn't going to save the world, but he'll keep the machine moving. He makes the right plays. Giannis himself gave Nance his flowers after the game for perfectly executing the dribble handoff and his general basketball intuition, making things easier for everyone around him. For a guy on a two-way contract with just 33 NBA games, Nance looked right at home in his first real crack at the rotation.
It would be a surprise if Nance doesn't hold onto the job as the Bucks' fourth big behind Giannis, Myles Turner, and Bobby Portis. Yes, it was just one game, but in theory as well as practice, his skillset is a better fit than Sims', and his upside is higher. Without a reason for the Bucks to keep him around, the latter may well become trade fodder, an auxiliary salary or positional match in one of whatever moves the team pulls off by the deadline.