It's time for the Bucks to do *something*
Good morning. Milwaukee is tripping through Giannis Antetokounmpo's prime, with just one playoff series win since the 2021 championship. If they can't make a run now, a major overhaul is required. Let's basketball.
A championship buys you precious little runway in the NBA. The league is built on the fossils of dynasties, and no team owner, no fan, no superstar ever seems satisfied with a single title for too long. Heck, no one is really satisfied with four championships: visit any group chat starring Warriors fans over the past three years and you'll see what I mean. In the NBA, what happens next always trumps what already happened. It's the reason even Hornets, Wizards, Nets and Jazz fans can have hope and the reason even Lakers, Bucks, Warriors, Nuggets and Celtics fans can have unease.
Even in that paradigm, where no one is satisfied long with a ring and where no one has won multiple titles in the last six years, the Bucks appear to be at a crossroads.
The core team built around wunderkind Giannis Antetokounmpo won a championship in 2021, the culmination of a methodical and smart build-up around a unique superstar with stability and fit ruling the program. I still remember and marvel at Antetokounmpo's Game 6 performance: it's one of the greatest Finals games in the history of the sport.
The Bucks certainly chased a second title, and that started to unravel what longevity the core could have had.
At the trade deadline in the 2021-22 season, the Bucks traded Donte DiVincenzo for Serge Ibaka and a second. Ibaka was already at the end of his useful career in the league – he only ended up playing limited minutes in Milwaukee over a season and change – but Milwaukee's front office thought they needed rim protection over shooting to repeat, and this was not an accurate assessment. After an easy first round over the No. 6 Bulls, the Bucks ran into the ascendant No. 2 Celtics. Ibaka played three minutes total. Milwaukee shot 28% from deep for the series as Jrue Holiday, Bobby Portis, Brook Lopez and Grayson Allen all went cold and Khris Middleton missed everything with an injury. The series went seven, with Milwaukee shooting 4/33 from deep in the deciding game. Three Celtics hit as many or more threes as the entire Bucks team in that Game 7.
This isn't to put the Bucks' failure to reach the Finals again in 2022 on the Donte DiVincenzo trade: he wasn't a proven NBA shooter at that point, the Celtics were ascendant and the Bucks wouldn't necessarily have gotten past their nemesis the Heat in the next round had they survived Boston. The Ibaka-DiVincenzo trade is merely emblematic of the hunger to validate championship with a second, the desperation even those who reign feel. The Bucks knew they had a team capable of triumphing over everything, but needed to tweak. That trade went quite bad as DiVincenzo became a plus rotation player and fringe starter while Ibaka quickly exited the player base. For a franchise now desperate for NBA-level supporting players around Giannis, it stings.
Think of it this way: the Bucks' starters in the 2021 Finals were Giannis (a perennial MVP contender), Holiday (one of the best backcourt defenders of his generation, then in his prime), Middleton (a high-end two-way wing), Lopez (the model stretch big who can protect the rim) and P.J. Tucker (a gritty three-and-D wing and enforcer). Unless legendary shooter and creator Damian Lillard can get cleared medically in the next few days, the Bucks' starting five for their upcoming series against the Pacers will likely be Giannis (still as amazing as ever), Lopez (now 37 years old and showing it), Taurean Prince (a great shooter who doesn't do a ton more), Ryan Rollins (a completely unproven point guard, perhaps the most anonymous playoffs starter if the Hawks don't advance out of the play-in) and Kyle Kuzma (theoretically a Middleton stand-in but ... not). Lopez was a one-time All-Star 12 years ago. Prince and Kuzma have never been remotely close, and Rollins is not currently on that trajectory. The bench stars Bobby Portis Jr. (freshly back from a 25-game banned substance suspension, cool), mid-tier shooter Gary Trent Jr. and A.J. Green. There's also Kevin Porter Jr., a wild card so distracting three teams have already essentially given up on him in trade dumps. He's 24.
Lillard's blood clot is horrifying for him and crippling for the Bucks. This looks somewhat different with Dame in the starting five, and Rollins coming off the bench with the others. But the Bucks sold out to land Lillard, who is now 34 years old. In the same summer the Bucks traded defense and flexibility for Lillard, they hired a head coach who would become so disliked they'd fire him midseason despite an excellent record. This was chased by the Kuzma trade, which reeked of desperation borne of Middleton breaking down in his mid-30s, and the KPJ acquisition, which set off alarms about this team's vision of itself. The team has spent Antetokounmpo's entire reign panicking. It worked when the panic move was trading picks for Holiday. Little since then has panned out.
The Bucks haven't won a playoff series since 2022, and while Giannis has missed some series in recent years (including last year's loss to the very Pacers Milwaukee now faces) the franchise is going backwards in the regular season win column and seeding picture, too. Talent is slowly leeching out, Giannis is getting older, stability is long gone and time is running out. Antetokounmpo has always expressed loyalty as a virtue, and it's better for NBA fans across the market spectrum if the Bucks keep him for his entire career. But he's an all-time legend with one championship, and this franchise has been going in the wrong direction ever since. A deep playoff run is imperative and feels improbable: the Pacers are really good, and the Cavaliers (the extremely likely opponent for the victor here) are excellent. Perhaps one series win plus a clean bill of health for Lillard going forward is encouraging enough to run it back next season. Perhaps not.
The Bucks aren't alone in this wilderness of chasing former glory while the chase is theoretically viable thanks to the presence of a basketball genius on the roster. The Nuggets are there. The Warriors are there. The Celtics, who have a genius of their own, feel more robust than these other teams. But read what we all said about Denver before Jamal Murray crashed out of the playoffs last spring, and you can see how fast this changes. That same thing applies to the Cavaliers and Timberwolves and maybe someday soon even the Knicks and Rockets and Thunder. This is a relatively normal path for recent champions: glory to desperation in record time. Some teams are able to reboot it during the superstar's tenure, with the Curry Warriors being the best example (the LeBron Lakers are inserting themselves into the conversation). Some teams aren't. We're about to get a big clue as to whether it's in the cards for the Bucks.
Surely This Will Fix Everything
Speaking of the Milwaukee Bucks falling from grace, the Phoenix Suns fired Mike Budenholzer as head coach on Monday. This appears to be the first step in a complete summer overhaul: it's being reported by ESPN and others that James Jones, the architect of this dumpster fire, is not under contract beyond this season and it's widely expected that Kevin Durant will be traded with a season left on his deal and no extension forthcoming.
Bradley Beal's difficult contract and an anemic asset base are the biggest problems here. Determining how to build a contender around 28-year-old Devin Booker is the obvious priority, and thankfully there's a really good model in the 2021 Phoenix Suns, who lost to Budenholzer's Bucks in the Finals. Interestingly, Chris Paul, Deandre Ayton and Cam Johnson are probably all available this offseason. Heck, Monty Williams is too! Mikal Bridges is off-limits, unfortunately.
Budenholzer should be able to bounce back quickly, if he wants. His system never took in Phoenix, but there were bigger issues than coaching there. Any and all of the teams with openings could benefit from consideration of Budenholzer. One on the West Coast in particular seems like a good fit. Hint hint.
One Axe Down in NOLA
The only other notable firing on Black Monday: David Griffin is out in New Orleans. The architect of one of the more snakebitten franchises in the league couldn't survive the latest disaster Pelicans season.
It sounds like Joe Dumars will replace Griffin and keep Willie Green. The next decision point is on Zion Williamson's future, which plugged-in Shamit Dua reports is not long for New Orleans. That would be the cap for Griffin's tenure since the GM started with the Pels by begrudgingly trading Anthony Davis and unbegrudgingly drafted Zion. Williamson's story is well-known at this point: brilliant and unique when on the court, but on the court only half the time at best, which makes the "unique" part really difficult to build a team around. Griffin has been similarly uneven: for every great draft pick (Dyson Daniels, Trey Murphy) or canny move (the Jrue Holiday trade) there's been a baffling mismanagement of assets (Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Brandon Ingram, the Dejounte Murray trade).
In any case, this is a weird roster in a weird situation and whatever happens from here will be very interesting.
Schedule
The play-in begins! Two playoff berths at stake.
Hawks at Magic, 7:30, TNT – winner faces the Celtics
Grizzlies at Warriors, 10, TNT – winner faces the Rockets
Alright, be excellent to each other.
