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The future of Jabari is one of the most important issues for the Bucks.

One issue is his injury proneness. I am not talking about that in this post, although it is a vital one and I have shared some insights into the general probabilities of a 3rd acl in an earlier posting on this board.

The other issue is his playing ability. This is the focus in this post. Many of us have discussed his strengths and weaknesses. The summary is that he is an offensive star and a defensive liability. So what should the Bucks do?

A recent article in espn talks about the extreme case of who is more valuable to a team: a v strong o & a v weak d player or vice versa.

I wanted to share the above and see what readers think of Jabari and the Bucks in the context of that. My own feeling is that Jabari is very valuable to the Bucks from a o vs d angle ---- though we may have to adjust our defensive scheme to make this work.

Here is what the article says about what kind of player is more valuable:

The offensive player. From a theoretical standpoint, this makes sense for a few reasons. First, the offense gets to dictate who controls possessions more than the defense does. So a truly great offensive player can be involved in nearly every trip down the court, and responsible for creating far more than his share of them. Meanwhile, a poor defender can be hidden on a player who isn't capable of creating his own shot to take advantage, and will probably not be heavily involved in more than his share of plays.

This logic is borne out by statistical analysis. If you look at RPM or the adjusted plus-minus on which it is built, the best offensive players typically rate better relative to league average than the best defensive players do. For example, in last year's RPM there were 14 players with an offensive RPM greater than 4.0 as compared to just four players whose defensive RPM surpassed that threshold.

So while ideally you'd like balanced players who contribute at both ends, it's pretty clear that although defense explains about 50 percent of why teams win or lose (a little less than 50 percent recently), it doesn't make up half of individual players' value to their teams.

The link to the article:

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/20864321/kevin-pelton-weekly-mailbag-including-lottery-reform-conference-imbalance

Previous Jabari thread was at 97 pages, I locked it up. We'll go with this as the Jabari thread going forward to talk about his game, his rehab and contract.

Knee injury aside, because I think he will come back but everyone here is going to be on pins and needles for years every time he touches the ball.

Even the biggest of Jabari critics have acknowledged this scheme is challenging, we all know it is hard to play, especially for young guys, doubly so when you don't have a true "QB" calling things out. Having him play with Thon should hopefully do wonders for a guy that has two years worth of on court experience with this scheme.

M-C-G wrote:Knee injury aside, because I think he will come back but everyone here is going to be on pins and needles for years every time he touches the ball.

Even the biggest of Jabari critics have acknowledged this scheme is challenging, we all know it is hard to play, especially for young guys, doubly so when you don't have a true "QB" calling things out. Having him play with Thon should hopefully do wonders for a guy that has two years worth of on court experience with this scheme.

Its not like Thon is a good defender though he just has elite hustle and length/timing to cover some of his mistakes

Jabari without any injuries is not a max player. Jabari with one knee should be given minimum guaranteed money. Either trade him or give him the most team friendly contract in history.

If he looks like the guy he was last season, he's going to get a max from someone. Young, efficient, 20 ppg scorers get paid.

Badgerlander wrote:

M-C-G wrote:Knee injury aside, because I think he will come back but everyone here is going to be on pins and needles for years every time he touches the ball.

Even the biggest of Jabari critics have acknowledged this scheme is challenging, we all know it is hard to play, especially for young guys, doubly so when you don't have a true "QB" calling things out. Having him play with Thon should hopefully do wonders for a guy that has two years worth of on court experience with this scheme.

Its not like Thon is a good defender though he just has elite hustle and length/timing to cover some of his mistakes

Thon talks non stop, kind of the opposite of Monroe. I think having someone constantly communicating is a huge plus for a guy like Jabari. That and you know, Thon using some of that elite hustle and length/timing to cover up some of Jabari's mistakes.

Badgerlander wrote:

M-C-G wrote:Knee injury aside, because I think he will come back but everyone here is going to be on pins and needles for years every time he touches the ball.

Even the biggest of Jabari critics have acknowledged this scheme is challenging, we all know it is hard to play, especially for young guys, doubly so when you don't have a true "QB" calling things out. Having him play with Thon should hopefully do wonders for a guy that has two years worth of on court experience with this scheme.

Its not like Thon is a good defender though he just has elite hustle and length/timing to cover some of his mistakes

He is a good defender though. He hustles, has length and knows where to be. He is often directing players on both ends. He knows the system well.

I don't know if he'll get a max offer but someone will offer a whole hell of a lot more than minimum... as they should. There is still an incredible amount of potential there... regardless of that potential now carrying significant risk.

Thon knowing where people should be and being vocal could go a long ways with Jabari....if nothing else it could help him remain focused.

jakecronus8 wrote:Jabari without any injuries is not a max player.

What you mean is that you would not offer a healthy Jabari the max, right? Because healthy Jabari is definitely getting the max.

If we can find a trade partner, I would be up for moving on. Love him to death, but my heart can't handle watching every game in fear.

Bulls, Hornets, Kings, Nets, Hawks, Jazz are some teams that come to mind.

I don't really get the trade talk. How often do you see players with serious injuries moved? IMO it's not even worth discussing.

ReasonablySober wrote:If he looks like the guy he was last season, he's going to get a max from someone. Young, efficient, 20 ppg scorers get paid.

His contract isn't going to be insured, you can bet on that. Will be interesting.

Chapter29 wrote:

Badgerlander wrote:

M-C-G wrote:Knee injury aside, because I think he will come back but everyone here is going to be on pins and needles for years every time he touches the ball.

Even the biggest of Jabari critics have acknowledged this scheme is challenging, we all know it is hard to play, especially for young guys, doubly so when you don't have a true "QB" calling things out. Having him play with Thon should hopefully do wonders for a guy that has two years worth of on court experience with this scheme.

Its not like Thon is a good defender though he just has elite hustle and length/timing to cover some of his mistakes

He is a good defender though. He hustles, has length and knows where to be. He is often directing players on both ends. He knows the system well.

He is an ok individual defender but looks pretty lost at times on team D. When the Raptors started going right at Thon in the playoffs we struggled

Maker is essentially a rookie and was starting. So, yeah, attacking him makes some sense.

I wonder about the looking lost at times.

From what I have read the coaches and players believe him to understand the offense and defense very well. To the point where they consider him a coach on the floor. And he's very vocal.

So I struggle with that as both cannot be true.

ReasonablySober wrote:I don't really get the trade talk. How often do you see players with serious injuries moved? IMO it's not even worth discussing.

Horst was around when injured Bogut was dealt for what that's worth.

But unless Jabari is the clincher in a package for a major player the way Lavine was in the Jimmy Butler trade I have a hard time seeing it.

Telly should personally give Jabari his money and take the minimum.

We need to have a Jabari hot take thread.


MVP within the next 10 years
He’s Thon’s secret grandson
He didn’t go to BYU because he wanted to meet girls
His 3rd ACL is made of adamantium

Prince12 wrote:Telly should personally give Jabari his money and take the minimum.

This is why the Bucks need to steer clear of signing bench players to 8 figure contracts in Free Agency.


Sign with Bucks for 8 figures per => Realize you hit the lottery => Kick back, relax, smoke some weed, and eat well => Chuck some shots => get a buy out/waived in your last year.

Usually how it happens for us.

Chapter29 wrote:Maker is essentially a rookie and was starting. So, yeah, attacking him makes some sense.

I wonder about the looking lost at times.

From what I have read the coaches and players believe him to understand the offense and defense very well. To the point where they consider him a coach on the floor. And he's very vocal.

So I struggle with that as both cannot be true.

Like you said he was a rookie and coming straight from high school. He is smart, but I think coach on the floor is being very generous lol. Thon is watching film and picking out defensive errors on the bench but he'll need more playing time to be diagnosing stuff on the floor. I'm not saying that Thon is a bad defender by any stretch just that he is young and needs more time before he can be the anchor.

Did we past the deadline to resign him?