Poll: The Elephant in the Room (Jennings/Monta Shooting %)

[InsideOut]

Meeks was a rookie playing for a hardass coach. As much as Skiles is an inept offensive mind, was it his fault that Jodie Meeks couldn't hit a jumper to save his life?

And to say Jefferson improved when he left is laughable. His numbers went down all across the board (even efficiency) and he played as a fourth or fifth option on the Spurs. He did not improve at all.

Why don't we talk about all the guys who got worse when they left here? Delfino, Thomas, Ridnour, Livingston etc. Where do they fall into the argument that Skiles can't coach?

As for our current crop of guys, I'm not sure what to think. Sure Tobes deserves more then 0 minutes a game but he sure isn't looking like the 15-20 ppg player most people thought. Ersan has played ATROCIOUS compared to where he was last season. Skiles is in the right to sit him as much as he does. Also, bringing up Jennings is laughable. Skiles gives him the biggest leash of just about any player/coach relationship in the NBA.

That is a great point that I didn't think about. RJ didn't improve and Meeks was here a short time and as a rookie he should get a little better as time goes by. However, you did a great job of pointing out all the guys that got worse just after leaving the Bucks. Right now it is fair to say that of the guys that left the Bucks the vast majority got worse rather than got better. This might be why Skiles has a reputation of getting the most out of players. It would sure help to figure Skiles out if Hammond got him some good players to coach. The other option is when he leaves after the year we’ll see how many games they win without him. Based on the Bucks history before Skiles I’d guess the next coach wins less games.

Your assuming that Skiles has no input on player acquisition, which is an assumption that I highly doubt. (See Bogut/Ellis)

Your assumption is incorrect. I have no doubt Skiles has input just like a vice President does with the President. However, when it all falls apart nobody blames the VP because of his input. When it comes to signing guys that is where Hammond rules over Skiles. If we're going to blame Skiles for both coaching and player acquisition then what is Hammond even being paid to do? And by the way...if Skiles stinks as a coach I'd ask who hired the guy?

[Ayt]

Also, I think our best post player is Monta.

He's had under 20 post-ups and shot under 42% FG on those post-ups. He's drawn 4 fouls on 18 possessions, so he has an unsustainable draw rate making him appear better there than he is. He can shoot around screens, that's what he does well, and he should do a lot more of that and a TON less of anything ever to do with being on-ball.

Yeah, I was talking back to the basket low post. I understand that Melo, Bron, etc. 'post up', but they generally just receive the ball and pivot to a triple threat position immediately. It's what Tobias Harris should do for the Bucks.

Mmm, they both back down equally, although I should point out that Hakeem was a deadly and prolific face-up scorer, as was Patrick Ewing. Dwight Howard's favorite move, that sweep-through into a drive into the bottom half of the circle? Learned directly from Ewing, who spammed that and a 17-footer once he started scoring a lot. Unless you're built like Shaq, even primary post players (like Dirk post-07) need a lot of face up game. It's fundamental stuff. It IS true that there aren't a ton of good post players in the league right now, but that's not atypical.

Meantime Ayt, again, you're talking mainly about talent cycle more than anything else, nothing more. Guards have always been the primary offensive weapons in the league, that's not actually a new development. Back to the basket offense has been widely misunderstood by fans who think Shaq is the model of the post player when he isn't. Tim Duncan is, and even at his peak he was a guy who loved face-up possessions.

I'm in my 30's. I'm probably older than you. I'm old enough to remember watching the elite centers of the 80's and 90's. It is insulting that you think my idea of post play is based on Shaq. I had been watching the NBA for several years before Shaq was a freshman at LSU. It is insulting that you think someone like me doesn't understand how Duncan operated offensively going all the way back to his Wake days. I was a fan of Wake before Duncan even got there.

[ampd]

It is **** embarrassing watching the offensive scheme of a team like Minny compared to the useless "offense" we run. I love defense, but I can't wait until Skiles is fired because he is a **** imbecile when it comes to offense.

I don't think Skiles offense is as bad as some, he clearly is trying to maximize our talent, we just don't have a lot of parts that fit together in obvious ways on the offensive end, and a lot of our players really only do 1 thing well.

For an example of adapting, nobody saw Moute as an offensive option, but after he came in and showed that he has been working on his post game and drawing fouls, Skiles has been going to him more and more, and in this past Celtics game he got a ton of looks. Skiles has been more willing than a lot of coaches to try things if it looks like they are going to work, even if his rotations are a weak point and maddening.

It is part of it though. For an example of what a really good offensive system can do for players, look at Deron Williams post Sloan. The difference isn't enormous necessarily, but often neither is the difference between winning and losing games over the long term.

for us though, I don't think Skiles offense is really holding us back that much.

[blazza18]

Skiles offensive system hasn't changed at all since he's been here. Its the same old stale thing over and over again. It's all built around our major weakness jump shots.

[paulpressey25]

I'm in my 30's. I'm probably older than you.

This board has now been around a long time. Even Ayt is now playing the age card. Eventually we will have a thread about Twirl needing a dental crown or Luke23 having arthritic knees playing Y ball.

[trwi7]

I already got a crown when I was 4. I busted a tooth and had to get one. Obviously it fell out but you're 21 years behind on that.

[tsherkin]

Maybe you should get a cream for that sensitivity, Ayt.

Maybe if you posted as if you understood what low post play was like, we wouldn't have this issue. There are several guys in the league right now with all the right skills, but missing a little of this or that evidenced by the top scorers from the post back in the day. It's not that post play is dead at all, it's just a matter of talent cycle. sticking to just bigs:

Garnett, Varejao, Kaman, McGee (increasingly), Monroe, Asik, Hibbert, Griffin, DAJ, Gasol, Z-Bo, Marc Gasol, BroPez, Howard, Drew Bynum, Gortat, LMA, Cousins, Duncan, Splitter, Al Jefferson and Nene all come to mind. So does Andrew Nicholson, who is looking not too bad for the Magic.

A lot of them are missing the elite physical tools we saw in Shaq, D-Rob, Dream and Ewing, though. Also, we're missing guards who aren't idiots and are both willing and able to properly enter the ball into the post as well as play post/re-post. Jefferson also happens to be allergic to contact because he's a wussy, but that's another story.

In any case, the short of it is that you're wrong; there are plenty of post players in the league, plenty of guys who use the low post, but aside from Shaq and Wilt, every post player of any value in league history has done a lot more than just iso on the block. Hell, even THEY did more than that.

This argument frustrates me endlessly, because it's so common and so wrong. Post play hasn't gone away, the league hasn't made it impossible for post players to thrive or get isos... It's just the conventional shift we see across the years. Talent is finite and cyclical, not constant and unvarying, Ayt. We're seeing the RETURN of post play to the league, slowly. We're seeing a lot more guard and forward post than we have since the late 90s and early 2000s, and we're seeing better talent at the 5, too. We're also reminding ourselves that being 7' plus isn't a requirement for post play, just like 6'6+ isn't for the 2.

This isn't news, it's just the way the league goes. There aren't a ton of GREAT post players in the league, but expecting star 5s in abundance in each era is just unrealistic.

[ReasonablySober]

This is something you don't see anymore, because post play with this generation sucks.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd1D-u8oAfo[/youtube]

[tsherkin]

That's kind of unfair, given that you're referencing two of the best players in the history of the entire league.

[SupremeHustle]

This is something you don't see anymore, because post play with this generation sucks.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd1D-u8oAfo[/youtube]

To be fair, showing tape of Hakeem and telling centers to "do that" is like showing tape of Jordan and telling guards to "do that." That dude was special.

[SupremeHustle]

That's kind of unfair, given that you're referencing two of the best players in the history of the entire league.

What he said.

[emunney]

But also, pre-Shaq, the league always had more than one of those guys.

[Nebula1]

The League is going smaller across the board for whatever reason. We are seeing smaller guys at 4 and 5 all the time now.

[Ayt]

The League is going smaller across the board for whatever reason. We are seeing smaller guys at 4 and 5 all the time now.

And smaller guys at at the 2.

[Nebula1]

The League is going smaller across the board for whatever reason. We are seeing smaller guys at 4 and 5 all the time now.

And smaller guys at at the 2.

True. And the attempt to go bigger at the 1. I'm not confident that's working.


Reminds me of Ice Hockey for Nintendo.



Bucks backcourt are two of the little guys who get knocked over easy.

[Ayt]

It is **** embarrassing watching the offensive scheme of a team like Minny compared to the useless "offense" we run. I love defense, but I can't wait until Skiles is fired because he is a **** imbecile when it comes to offense.

I don't think Skiles offense is as bad as some, he clearly is trying to maximize our talent, we just don't have a lot of parts that fit together in obvious ways on the offensive end, and a lot of our players really only do 1 thing well.

For an example of adapting, nobody saw Moute as an offensive option, but after he came in and showed that he has been working on his post game and drawing fouls, Skiles has been going to him more and more, and in this past Celtics game he got a ton of looks. Skiles has been more willing than a lot of coaches to try things if it looks like they are going to work, even if his rotations are a weak point and maddening.

It is part of it though. For an example of what a really good offensive system can do for players, look at Deron Williams post Sloan. The difference isn't enormous necessarily, but often neither is the difference between winning and losing games over the long term.

for us though, I don't think Skiles offense is really holding us back that much.

We aren't even running a set offense at this point. Skiles has said as much. He's letting the inmates run the asylum. You can't give free reign to guys like Baddy and Monta at the guard spots and expect them to be efficient, but that is what we have.

[AussieBuck]

The League is going smaller across the board for whatever reason. We are seeing smaller guys at 4 and 5 all the time now.

The reason is rule changes and more complex defensive schemes. Spacing is king.

[tsherkin]

The reason is rule changes and more complex defensive schemes. Spacing is king.

To some extent, but if there were more strong bigs, we'd see more setups with interior scorers. We're also seeing guys who should be 5s be 4s, and we're pretending like you must be 7'+ at the 5 or you're "undersized.". 6'9 - 6'11 is just fine, of course. We are also pretending like Shaq is the model low post player, instead of Duncan, which is foolish. We're also forgetting that on a list of bigs, consistent 25+ ppg scorers are Shaq, Kareem and Wilt. Basically everyone else only did it rarely or in a peak burst.

We're also seeing lower average mpg for stars. Not a lot of 40+ mpg bigs these days, you'll notice. We're also seeing younger guys without the physical preparedness for the league, so it takes time and they don't develop as primary scorers the way they might have done in college or as immediate weapons.

Many factors are sabotaging post play, but none of them mean that it is any less potent... If done properly. Lest we forget, Bill Cartwright was once a 20 ppg scorer, that doesn't mean it was a good idea. Good passing and guard/post interaction is key and guard fundamentals kind of suck today.

[Treebeard]

Somewhat Off Topic, but kinda related.....

CBS Sports has the Bucks slipping to #15 in their ranking, below the Nuggets, Wolves, and Nets; and just ahead of the Jazz.

The teaser line is: "They're like the toys that don't come with batteries included."

[tsherkin]

Heh, Treebeard. Nice. You should be mandated to have a sig that reads "Do Not Be Hasty."

Anyway, the Bucks aren't dealing with an "elephant in the room;" Monta and Jennings are both known and discussed as low-efficiency gunners. They, like many other low-middle or high-bottom teams have roster-wide issues. If they keep the team together, I'd be worried, but I don't think they'll keep the backcourt together, because it flies in the face of all elements of winning basketball.

I'd like to know where Sova's game went, though, because that's a bit awkward. Aside from that, though, Milwaukee's problems are frustratingly mundane and have no quick solution. Welcome, in other words, to the Treadmill Zone. Skiles has the team defending well but they need to find and exploit some competitive offensive advantages and those come only with roster support.