PG Indy: Bucks on the brink

[tedbrogen]

I believe we probably just witnessed Giannis’ final home game as a Buck.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

I'm really worried about us long term. Brook/Dame/Pat are washed or injured, Kuz sucks. Who else do we have long term that can be of any value? We can't draft for **** and are in cap hell. The future is looking bleak. At least we got a title, but damn....I'm scared.

After the Jrue trade and we won the new cap rules came in and ****ed us and we did ourselves no favors before or after that.

Brook is a free agent so we don’t have to worry about him at all. Kuzma is on a declining contract the next two seasons. Pat almost certainly opts in for one more year on his player option.

Really our cap is just Giannis and Dame.

Just be glad we’re not Philly. Embiid’s contract STARTS AFTER next season. 3/200 million.

Including next season he has 4/250 million.

The 76ers at least have Maxey and McCain, they also own their 26 1st, 28st and Clippers 28 1st, and 2029 swap. They have at least one good young piece if not more and have future opportunities. Even with limited cap space.

And unless Embiid is done, I still think that is a positive contract (admittedly not by much). borderline all NBA guys make $50m+ and I think a lot of teams will role the dice on adding Embiid as a second guy over a lot of the messy contracts out there (Brown, Murray, Bam, Siakam, etc). obviously that changes if he gets hurt again, but his top end talent is pretty damn high that there's a chance you catch lightning with him like Leonard.

[ShootingtheJ]

Khris immediately got hurt again in Washington. He was never going to get healthy. He didn’t play a single game over 30 minutes this season.

If we kept Khris AND Dame tore his Achilles we’d be in an even worse situation than we are now. We’d have 89 million dollars tied up to two guys who literally cannot play basketball next season and we wouldn’t have the means to do anything in free agency.

Wizards fan here

Khris didn’t get hurt. He was sat down for tanking purposes. He was helping win too many games.

My man, he busted his knee and had to get an MRI. He shot 27% from 3 in Washington. They were blown out in the last 4 games he played with the last one being a 53 point loss to this Pacers team.

Who cares if he had an MRI? If showed a bruise. You said last year he was done, then he dominated in the playoffs. All he needed to do was better than Kuzma. 2 dozen guys from the G League could do that.

[Matches Malone]

Read on Twitter

[midranger]

We don’t know the extent of Middleton’s injury.

We do know that the Wiz were tanking for a pick.

We also can infer that they were/are hoping to trade Middleton to a contender for some positive value next year in they can keep him healthy enough to do so.

These two things make me believe that there’s a chance the Wiz sat him for reasons unrelated to season ending injury, but that’s not entirely certain.

What is entirely certain is that Kyle Kuzma has been the worst player in the NBA to get 30+ minutes per game since 3 games after he was traded to the Bucks. He’s been horrendous, and continues to play for reasons unclear.

We’d be better with Middleton and Johnson, even if neither played a minute this series, just because Kuzma has been that terrible.

My guess is for this team, in the playoffs, Middleton would have m been available for 24 minutes per game. But that’s speculation. We know how ass Kuzma has been.

I’m not a Never-Trade-Khris guy by any stretch. We should’ve traded him 2.5 years ago. However, adding a first round rookie and taking on an extra year of Kyle Kuzma is an inexcusable self own. Just deplorable stuff

[HKPackFan]

So is it official torn ACL for Dame?

[tedbrogen]

So is it official torn ACL for Dame?

Torn Achilles is most likely. If so, he’s done done as an effective player. Basically worst case scenario. The team is done and it could only get worse if they decide to get pushing forward until Giannis opts out in two years since they would then have the first three post-Giannis years without owning their own picks.

[blazza18]

Trading for this guy was our final nail in the coffin moment. Was no coming back from it.

Read on Twitter

[FAH1223]

My man, he busted his knee and had to get an MRI. He shot 27% from 3 in Washington. They were blown out in the last 4 games he played with the last one being a 53 point loss to this Pacers team.

Josh Robbins who covers the team and David Aldridge have said the injury was not serious. Khris could have played more games. MRI showed a contusion.

And the Wizards were winning games in February and March with him on the floor. 6-6 record in the first 12.

Too many Ws as Utah did their shameless tanking.

[AussieBuck]

Hats off to the Pacers, they kept making the shots to stop us gaining any ground.

We're a dumpster fire, I dunno.

[FAH1223]

Watch on YouTube

[Thanos1985]

Game 4, at home, must win to give us any chance...and we don't lead for one single minute of the game.

Bucks playing like it's a midweek game in the middle of december, whilst Indiana are actually playing with intensity.

People should be furious with what's been put out on the floor this series. It's not a playoff ready team by any stretch, and that's not just in personnel, it's the way that we're playing (or not playing).

How to lead when you start the game with a line up , that is proven, proven to be net negative every miinute of the series. Especially in home games you want to lead, the arena to be loud to have this momentum with you. But you choose to build confidence to the rival team by giving them a 10 points lead. Cause this happened in all games. This line up strugled in offence , slow and gave open looks on defence, every single minute. A haff brain dead man would had done adjustments. i man with iq of 70 if the assistants would had explained that, or would had read the stats , would had taken the desition to make adjustments

[BroncoBuck]

Wizards fan here

Khris didn’t get hurt. He was sat down for tanking purposes. He was helping win too many games.

My man, he busted his knee and had to get an MRI. He shot 27% from 3 in Washington. They were blown out in the last 4 games he played with the last one being a 53 point loss to this Pacers team.

Who cares if he had an MRI? If showed a bruise. You said last year he was done, then he dominated in the playoffs. All he needed to do was better than Kuzma. 2 dozen guys from the G League could do that.

It’s the same knee soreness that caused him to have surgery in 2023. He’s done. Khris wouldn’t have played a single game this series. He can’t move. It’s gotten to the point where it’s so bad he can’t even shoot well anymore.

You can keep lying to yourself all you want, but Khris Middleton is done. His legs are toast. Prepare yourself for the inevitable “Khris Middleton had offseason surgery” articles that are going to drop.

[JayMKE]

So glad we traded everything to experience this

Giannis can play on bad teams like Dirk, I’m not ever trading him. Only saving grace the franchise has.

[JayMKE]

Also ya Khris is better than Kuzma, Khris not playing is still probably better than Kuzma

[BroncoBuck]

My man, he busted his knee and had to get an MRI. He shot 27% from 3 in Washington. They were blown out in the last 4 games he played with the last one being a 53 point loss to this Pacers team.

Josh Robbins who covers the team and David Aldridge have said the injury was not serious. Khris could have played more games. MRI showed a contusion.

And the Wizards were winning games in February and March with him on the floor. 6-6 record in the first 12.

Too many Ws as Utah did their shameless tanking.

4 of those wins were against the Nets, Hornets, Jazz and Raptors. Congrats on beating a bunch of tanking teams.

You don’t know your Khris Middleton lore if you think a knee contusion wasn’t going to keep him out of action. This is the same guy who missed the playoffs because he slipped on the court. He sat out the first quarter of the season because of soreness.

Get ready to learn “offseason surgery”

[pifhluk23]

Khris Middleton averaged 25/9/5 on 48/35/90 against this same team 12 months ago.

We traded him and our 1st round pick for Kyle Kuzma.

Then, we extended the GM who made that trade.

He is also Giannis best friend. I can't believe we extended Horst, this honestly feels like the Kohl era is going to happen all over again. Been watching the Bucks since the early 90s and this is probably the lowest I've ever felt other than when the refs stole the ECF from us to get Iverson in the Finals.

[GoldenAntlers]

Giannis looked the most distant I may have ever seen him while on the bench during the game last night.

[trwi7]

Boys, I’m going to need you in the years to come.

I can’t do it again.

I was there for an awful decade.

Doing it again feels like an unpaid job I’m not willing to do.

Come on, some of our best times on this board were when the Bucks were horrible. Remember that one game thread, late night against the Blazers and we just talked about whatever the **** we wanted because it was better than the game? Most of our threads were better than OT: Pants.

[ShootingtheJ]

My man, he busted his knee and had to get an MRI. He shot 27% from 3 in Washington. They were blown out in the last 4 games he played with the last one being a 53 point loss to this Pacers team.

Who cares if he had an MRI? If showed a bruise. You said last year he was done, then he dominated in the playoffs. All he needed to do was better than Kuzma. 2 dozen guys from the G League could do that.

It’s the same knee soreness that caused him to have surgery in 2023. He’s done. Khris wouldn’t have played a single game this series. He can’t move. It’s gotten to the point where it’s so bad he can’t even shoot well anymore.

You can keep lying to yourself all you want, but Khris Middleton is done. His legs are toast. Prepare yourself for the inevitable “Khris Middleton had offseason surgery” articles that are going to drop.

Middleton literally played through needing surgery year after year. He didn't need to be great to be better than Kuzma. His basketball IQ alone saves the team.