The Milwaukee Bucks suffered another late defeat at the hands of the Cleveland Cavaliers Monday, but Doc Rivers made some interesting rotation choices.
It has been clear the Bucks needed to lean on their youth, with the veterans struggling to keep up with any team that was younger and quicker, which led to blowouts. As the Bucks ran the Cavaliers close, AJ Green scored 21 in 33 minutes, Andre Jackson Jr. scored seven in 24 minutes and two-way combo guard Ryan Rollins surprisingly got six minutes and hit one of his two shot attempts.
With veteran guard Delon Wright struggling to make any sort of impact off the bench, Rollins has shown glimpses of what he can bring to the rotation at the guard spot. Relying on the young energy is the way forward for Rivers and Milwaukee, so perhaps he should aim to extend this experiment.
Bucks should give Ryan Rollins more consistent minutes
Since being drafted in the second round of the 2022 NBA Draft, Rollins has been all over the country. The Atlanta Hawks selected him, he was traded to the Golden State Warriors, required season-ending foot surgery in early 2023 and then was traded to the Washington Wizards as part of the Jordan Poole deal. It was only in February of this year that he landed in Milwaukee and signed a two-year two-way deal.
He hasn't played much for Milwaukee since his arrival. The 22-year-old has only featured in five games this season, and four of those were mainly garbage time minutes, but Monday night showed that going to him, Green and Jackson could be a nice little trio for the Milwaukee Bucks while still relying on experienced players in the frontcourt, such as Brook Lopez and Bobby Portis.
Against Cleveland, with Rollins on the court, the Bucks had a +/- of +7. Then there's Delon Wright, who finished with a +/- of -8.
The veteran has been incredibly underwhelming defensively, where he tends to have the most upside. Wright didn't defend a shot on Monday night in his four minutes, and on the season, he has the worst defended field goal percentage of anyone on the Bucks at 59.4 percent. Players are hitting their shots consistently with Wright as their primary defender.
Not only has Wright been disappointing so far defensively, but he has actually gone scoreless in four of the seven games so far as well. If he comes in to replace Damian Lillard or Gary Trent Jr., he needs to not only contribute to stability on the defensive end but also needs to add some sort of scoring. Thus far, it's just not happening.
Ryan Rollins could be the alternative. Doc Rivers clearly thinks there is something there.
This may be reading too much into it, but AJ Johnson being with the Wisconsin Herd in the G-League perhaps shows that Rivers and the coaching staff have more faith in what Rollins can bring to the team now. With Johnson, it could be a situation of getting him more reps down there and not having the eyes on him following the pressure of being the 23rd overall pick.
Rollins may not be a finished product, and like all young players, mistakes will happen. Still, allowing them to play and iron those mistakes out and fine-tune their skills in real competitive games is a bonus for them and the Milwaukee Bucks. Rivers still needs to be making moves with his rotations to end this six-game losing streak. Ryan Rollins could be a sneaky weapon for Milwaukee.
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