Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Why Aren't You Rooting for the Bucks?



The Milwaukee Bucks are God's chosen gift to basketball.  After last night's stirring defensive performance, the Bucks have won two straight games over the Chicago Bulls to get back in a series they were down 3-0.  Are they going to win?  No, of course not.  It's almost unheard of in the NBA for a team to come back from down three games to none, having occurred only once since the first round became a best-of-seven series.  Outside of Mark Cuban's nightmares, it's pretty much impossible.  However, that doesn't mean that the Bucks are anything but the best thing.  They may be essentially doomed this season, but it's never too early to think ahead for what bandwagon to get on.  Everyone likes to look down on bandwagon fans, which means now is the time to hop on so you too can act like you're better than everyone else the next few years.



Here's the thing about the Bucks: they probably aren't going to win a championship or complete a crazy Hawks-ian leap next year.  They'll be good, but probably only marginally better than they were this year (when they were a .500 team in what can generously be called a bad conference).  Brandon Knight, their best offensive player by far, is in Phoenix now, replaced by Michael Carter-Williams, who is younger, taller, and may not be able to tell the difference between his team and the opposition on any given night.  MCW has averaged over 3.5 turnovers a game both of his years in the NBA and has a 1.7 A/TO ratio in his career thus far, which is right in the arena of score-first point guards like Knight and Monta Ellis.  MCW does not, however, score: he's a career 40% shooter on the nose and has shot 25% from three, which is worse than Josh Smith.  Whenever you're worse at something than Josh Smith, that's a bad thing.  An easy way to judge an NBA player's value is whether or not you would rather have Josh Smith doing that thing.

There are a handful of other problems with the team.  Ersan Ilyasova can't decide whether or not he wants to be good for more than a 10-game stretch anymore.  Their best outside shooter is whatever guard they draft/sign this offseason.  Khris Middleton is about to cost so much money.  Jared Dudley might also be gone, lessening the Bucks mob of Lorenzo Romar Ideal Basketball Players (6'6"-ish, positionless guys who can almost shoot the 3).  Jerryd Bayless insists on shaving his head and looking like a conehead.  That whole Larry Sanders thing happened.

In short, there's plenty of room for improvement.  This is not the Golden State Warriors of last season, where the only thing holding them back was a coach who was more concerned with preaching about Jesus than real basketball strategies.  The Bucks still have to hit on a few things here and there to become an elite team.  Their work isn't done yet.

What they do have, however, is just so much fun you guys.  Jabari Parker is real good and was just beginning to figure out what his shot was before he got hurt (Parker shot 55% from the field in the seven games leading up to his injury).  The former Best Dressed Male Celebrity in Atlanta Zaza Pachulia plays basketball again, and well enough at that (10/8/3 as a starter).

And Giannis.


Remember when you were young and would go into NBA 2k5 or whatever year you had (I don't know how your childhood went).  You'd create a player that was way too tall, name him something you thought was funny (probably a poo and/or dick pun), and make him a 99 overall before running rampant over the NBA?  Giannis Antetokounmpo is like that in real life, but without the poop-joke name (Antetopoonmpo).

Do you want Giannis to rebound?  Giannis rebound!  Giannis averaged 6.7 rebounds a game this year, tops among non-big forwards (big in this case meaning the position: discounting guys like LaMarcus Aldridge, Gorgui Dieng, etc.).  Do you want Giannis to score?  Oh ho ho, you silly boy, Giannis score!  Of course Giannis score.  At this point, he doesn't score a lot by any means: he only averaged 13 PPG this season and has taken all of 162 threes in his two seasons, or roughly the amount Klay Thompson attempts in a half.  He's a cutter right now, but oh what a cutter he is when he succeeds.  The important thing to remember here is that Giannis is 20 years old, is starting to add some weight to his 6'11" frame, and is just now getting over the fact that smoothies are a thing.

The fact that Giannis is 6'11" and can actually play guard is part of the beauty of the Bucks.  Everyone on their roster, everyone they've pursued over the last two years, fits into the lanky kind of player that can move up and down a lineup.  The Bucks don't have to fight through screens over and over: why bother when you can just switch from 6'9" power forward Jabari Parker to 6'9" point guard Carter-Williams?  Ok, there is no good situation in which you want MCW guarding someone who has ever scored a basket, but still.  The Bucks are able to switch, switch, and switch some more.

Their length also lets them gamble aggressively like no one else.  Of course Middleton can go for that risky steal: Giannis, Parker, and MCW are right behind him, holding hands in an impenetrable red rover defense.  Milwaukee's defense is a beautiful mess of chaos that doesn't really look chaotic so much as it does dominant.  Whereas a college team like VCU looks like they're good at creating turnovers more than they are good at defense, Milwaukee often looks so good at defense that they can go for AI-level gambles and lose nothing.  This from a lineup of players primarily in their early 20s (Giannis is 20, MCW 23, Parker 20, Middleton 24, John Henson Living Arm Machine 25) still learning how to live in the NBA.  Defense is an old man's system requiring young man athleticism and Milwaukee is dangerously close to hitting that beautiful sweet spot.  They were eighth in points allowed per game this season and that's with the Knight/MCW combination Benny Hill-ing after their man many positions.

This isn't all about that though.  This is about why you should be rooting for the Bucks, albeit just so I have someone else to geek out about them with.  Giannis loving smoothies isn't enough on its own, I'll give you that.

You know what is, though?  Athletic blocks.  There's nothing less interesting than Tim Duncan softly tapping a shot off course.  The blocks we all love are the chasedowns, the off-the-backboards, the just generally awesome.  As fans, we love game-winners, even more so when they're so, so swaggy.  Dunks are amazing and should always happen (side note: look at the wingspan of every Buck on the second link there.  Henson may be touching both backboards at one point).

Even more important: their mascot is named Bango the Buck and is awesome.  Their new logos (see above) are pretty sweet.  And, last but not least, Zaza Pachulia bought the Bucks old court and put in Tbilisi and plans on doing this with as many courts as he can as they get replaced around the NBA.  Random Georgian kids are treading the same ground as legends like Darvin Ham, Paul Mokeski, and many other guys you think I just made up.

The Bucks are cool as hell.  Sure, they don't have some of the NBA's most entertaining young players like Jusuf Nurkic, the King of My Heart, but they have an incredible assortment of athletic freaks who are just having fun out there and are only getting better at more and more entertaining things.  In hindsight, it would have been a lot faster to just type this paragraph and nothing else.  My apologies.

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