Season Speculation, Trade Ideas & Discussion Pt. 3

[batsmasher]

What has Chriss done that is so bad? Immaturity on the court at times? Sure, but he's 20. Comparing him to Kieff is just unfair at this point.

Fans will always hate dudes that pout and don't give effort on the court. That has nothing to do with your age.

Off the court we are lucky Quese is a normal chill dude. Definitely doesn't deserve the Kieff comparison in that respect.

And yeah, Kieff has/had a pretty solid BBIQ - verdict is still out on whether Quese's basketball brain even exists.

The bright side is that Kieff and Marcus both developed into passable players despite being average punks at Kansas when they were Quese's current age. A player as raw as Quese is going to be a product of his coaching, so it's not exactly a shocker that Watson and his assistants haven't helped him take the next step. He has tons of athletic potential and his shooting form is good, so we just have to hope that a guy like Triano that lives for teaching basketball can help get him and these young guys were they need to be over the course of this season.

I'm sure many agree... if Quese were under a Pop/Spo/Carlisle type he'd be getting DNP-CD's until he started showing consistent effort on the floor. Development isn't always about force feeding basketball experience into young guys.

[bwgood77]

Ofcourse it's waaay to early to be looking at standings, but if the playoffs were to start tomorrow - we'd basically be in a position where we'd enter the 2019 draft with 2 unprotected picks and one 4-16 pick.

This is not your grand daddy's eastern conference, teams that missed the playoffs last year:

• Detroit Pistons
• Charlotte Hornets
• New York Knicks
• Orlando Magic
• Philadelphia 76ers

will make a legit playoff push this year


and I don't doubt for a second that playoff regulars:

• Boston Celtics
• Cleveland Cavaliers
• Toronto Raptors
• Washington Wizards

will return again this year.

I'm not at all as convinced that the heat and bucks are playoffs locks as some seem to be. Even if the Bucks make the playoffs, that top protection ensures that at least in the short term we're not going to end up with the 28th pick or something. My guess would be that the bucks pick will end up mid first round (which was realistically always Bledsoe's value), and that the miami pick will be top 10 - either this year or the next.

Indiana is playing well too. I think there is a reasonably good chance Milwaukee finishes in the 7/8/9 spot. Though I think they could also finish very high in the east. There doesn't seem to be a clear cut best team as far as the regular season goes. Of course it's still super early so some of the regular (as of late) bad teams may fall back in time.

[jcsunsfan]

So once again, just like Dragic, we send the player out to the team he wants to go to, and we get our name drug through the mud in turn for doing so.

Its funny how all this "Doing right by the player" hasnt helped one bit, and we end up being trashed by that player once he goes where he wanted to go.

That's the problem - we aren't doing right by the players. Obviously this organization has some issues keeping players happy. Idk if it's communication, honesty, facilities (I remember complaints about all three) or something else but their processes need to change. Their staff, what's expected, how they operate all need to be adjusted to improve player relations.

We are rebuilding. Players want to win. Cleveland just won a championship and was in the finals last year and Kyrie was not happy. Paul George was not happy in Indiana. This is the way the league is now. Time to quit all the second guessing and navel gazing.

What was our alternative? Play Bledsoe last year and end up with a worse pick. Give him the Mac extension that he wanted. Maybe they could have traded him last summer, but when they failed to get Kyrie, they felt the wanted him.


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[carey]

People on ESPN were talking about how this makes Milwaukee the team to beat in the East. I don't see how, but stranger things have happened. I still think that McDonough should have remained patient and waited until December 15th. This deal would have been there until the trade deadline.

[batsmasher]

People on ESPN were talking about how this makes Milwaukee the team to beat in the East. I don't see how, but stranger things have happened. I still think that McDonough should have remained patient and waited until December 15th. This deal would have been there until the trade deadline.

I'm really excited for the Bucks. If motivated mini-LeBron is anything like motivated LeBron then we are in for a treat.

[darealjuice]

Fans will always hate dudes that pout and don't give effort on the court. That has nothing to do with your age.

Off the court we are lucky Quese is a normal chill dude. Definitely doesn't deserve the Kieff comparison in that respect.

And yeah, Kieff has/had a pretty solid BBIQ - verdict is still out on whether Quese's basketball brain even exists.

The bright side is that Kieff and Marcus both developed into passable players despite being average punks at Kansas when they were Quese's current age. A player as raw as Quese is going to be a product of his coaching, so it's not exactly a shocker that Watson and his assistants haven't helped him take the next step. He has tons of athletic potential and his shooting form is good, so we just have to hope that a guy like Triano that lives for teaching basketball can help get him and these young guys were they need to be over the course of this season.

I'm sure many agree... if Quese were under a Pop/Spo/Carlisle type he'd be getting DNP-CD's until he started showing consistent effort on the floor. Development isn't always about force feeding basketball experience into young guys.

Sure it's not, but the thing Quese specifically needs more than anything to become a good basketball player is to play as much basketball as possible. It's entirely possible that he literally has the least competitive basketball experience and real coaching of anyone in the NBA, he needs to play to develop a feel for the game. Attitude problems are quickly solved by winning, but winning isn't going to happen until he, someone we invested a high draft pick into, becomes a good basketball player. Plus Triano is very upfront with him and recently has even gone to Dudley in games while benching Bender and Chriss when they play poorly, so I'm sure Quese has heard plenty about his effort issues.

[jredsaz]

So once again, just like Dragic, we send the player out to the team he wants to go to, and we get our name drug through the mud in turn for doing so.

Its funny how all this "Doing right by the player" hasnt helped one bit, and we end up being trashed by that player once he goes where he wanted to go.

That's the problem - we aren't doing right by the players. Obviously this organization has some issues keeping players happy. Idk if it's communication, honesty, facilities (I remember complaints about all three) or something else but their processes need to change. Their staff, what's expected, how they operate all need to be adjusted to improve player relations.

We are rebuilding. Players want to win. Cleveland just won a championship and was in the finals last year and Kyrie was not happy. Paul George was not happy in Indiana. This is the way the league is now. Time to quit all the second guessing and navel gazing.

What was our alternative? Play Bledsoe last year and end up with a worse pick. Give him the Mac extension that he wanted. Maybe they could have traded him last summer, but when they failed to get Kyrie, they felt the wanted him.


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That's great but the problems have been happening for a lot longer than Bledsoe. No other team has had the problems the Suns have had in this area.

I own a business and I look at these issues as a business owner. The frequency with which this happens points to the fact that something is broken in their processes - how they function as an organization.

If, as you say, players are becoming more apt to control their own future a successful organization will adapt their processes to account for the change in player behavior. It's obvious Sarver and McD have not made the proper changes.

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[lilfishi22]

What was our alternative? Play Bledsoe last year and end up with a worse pick. Give him the Mac extension that he wanted. Maybe they could have traded him last summer, but when they failed to get Kyrie, they felt the wanted him.


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It's about planning ahead. If you sit Bledsoe when he's healthy and he's come to you privately asking for a trade in the offseason, you do what you can to move him before it gets leaked out to the media that he wants out. McD already had first hand experience dealing with Kieff and Dragic. He got good return for both players but he got lucky both times and luck is not something you rely on.

[WeekapaugGroove]

What was our alternative? Play Bledsoe last year and end up with a worse pick. Give him the Mac extension that he wanted. Maybe they could have traded him last summer, but when they failed to get Kyrie, they felt the wanted him.


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It's about planning ahead. If you sit Bledsoe when he's healthy and he's come to you privately asking for a trade in the offseason, you do what you can to move him before it gets leaked out to the media that he wants out. McD already had first hand experience dealing with Kieff and Dragic. He got good return for both players but he got lucky both times and luck is not something you rely on.

This 100%. You have to understand the vibe of your players and predict potential problems. This regime has simply done a horrific job of this. I had/have no problem with the idea of sitting bledsoe last year but I would have just been proactive and dealt him last deadline so I wouldn't need to deal with it. And at the very least flipped him this summer when they decided they weren't interested in extending him. None of this is completely out of the blue.

Im obviously critical of how this was handled but I will say around draft time I assumed his value was around a mid 1st and with the way the protections on this work its very possible this ends up netting them a mid 1st.

The protections make for some odd rooting for me. I grew up in wisco and have lived in Phoenix for 15 years so I root for both the suns and bucks. So I want to see the bucks do well but thats not the best for the suns pick.

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[Walt_Uoob]

I still think that McDonough should have remained patient and waited until December 15th. This deal would have been there until the trade deadline.

I don't disagree but fwiw this trade is more valuable now than in December because by doing it now we can trade Monroe again in December. People are saying Monroe was just a contract throw-in and we have no plan for him but the timing of this deal really seems to me to be motivated by that re-trade possibility.

[batsmasher]

Sure it's not, but the thing Quese specifically needs more than anything to become a good basketball player is to play as much basketball as possible. It's entirely possible that he literally has the least competitive basketball experience and real coaching of anyone in the NBA, he needs to play to develop a feel for the game. Attitude problems are quickly solved by winning, but winning isn't going to happen until he, someone we invested a high draft pick into, becomes a good basketball player. Plus Triano is very upfront with him and recently has even gone to Dudley in games while benching Bender and Chriss when they play poorly, so I'm sure Quese has heard plenty about his effort issues.

I can't believe this is coming from a college baller. You know better than anyone that the combination of effort and talent is what differentiates those who succeed from the failures.

BBIQ and feel for the game are irrelevant to how much effort you give. A guy like Kanter has absolutely no idea how to defend a PnR but you can see he busts his ass in every other aspect of the game. Sure Quese might not have a clue in the world on how to time a shot block, a rebound. It's the laziness you see when something goes against him- that's inexcusable. That's a red flag for development.

And frankly I think the way we describe "talent" is all wrong. Being a committed, coachable, absorptive, adaptable player is just as much of a "talent" as a guys jumping ability or shooting ability. So maybe we should stop framing a dude like Quese as a "talented" young guy, because the reality is none of these "talents" ever eventuate without the NBA-level commitment on the court - something Quese is yet to demonstrate.

[WeekapaugGroove]

One last thing on Bledsoe sitting last season. Even that was handled foolishly. Right before they sat him down he played heavy minutes in all 4 games of a 4 in 5 night stretch. I never understood why they didnt start sitting him every back to back right after the deadline. They could have sat him the same number of total games and kept him playing a couple extra weeks. Maybe that still wouldn't have mattered but it was just odd how they handled it.

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[lilfishi22]

I still think that McDonough should have remained patient and waited until December 15th. This deal would have been there until the trade deadline.

I don't disagree but fwiw this trade is more valuable now than in December because by doing it now we can trade Monroe again in December. People are saying Monroe was just a contract throw-in and we have no plan for him but the timing of this deal really seems to me to be motivated by that re-trade possibility.

I'm not sure about that

That's assuming Monroe (+assets ?) can net you more in Dec. I'm super sceptical about that. If Bledsoe's value is this low and we are to believe that Milwaukee likely got the better player and better value from this trade, then we came away with less than what we started with. If that's case, how can Monroe at $17m and no team really looking to salary dump anything decent, net us more than a healthy and productive Bledsoe?

No matter when you look to make the deal Bledsoe > Monroe (assuming we keep the picks). And as Carey mentioned, this deal would've been there in Dec. I don't agree that the landscape won't change between now and the trade deadline. Teams get desperate when their standing look shaky and we've seen this season after season.

[WeekapaugGroove]

Sure it's not, but the thing Quese specifically needs more than anything to become a good basketball player is to play as much basketball as possible. It's entirely possible that he literally has the least competitive basketball experience and real coaching of anyone in the NBA, he needs to play to develop a feel for the game. Attitude problems are quickly solved by winning, but winning isn't going to happen until he, someone we invested a high draft pick into, becomes a good basketball player. Plus Triano is very upfront with him and recently has even gone to Dudley in games while benching Bender and Chriss when they play poorly, so I'm sure Quese has heard plenty about his effort issues.

I can't believe this is coming from a college baller. You know better than anyone that the combination of effort and talent is what differentiates those who succeed from the failures.

BBIQ and feel for the game are irrelevant. You either give it or you don't. A guy like Kanter has absolutely no idea how to defend a PnR but you can see he busts his ass in every other aspect of the game. Sure Quese might not have a clue in the world on how to time a shot block, a rebound. It's the laziness you see when something goes against him- that's inexcusable. That's a red flag for development.

And frankly I think the way we describe "talent" is all wrong. Being a committed, coachable, absorptive, adaptable player is just as much of a "talent" as a guys jumping ability or shooting ability. So maybe we should stop framing a dude like Quese as a "talented" young guy, because the reality is none of these "talents" ever eventuate without the NBA-level commitment on the court - something Quese is yet to demonstrate.

I couldn't agree more with your statement about how quese reacts to things not going his way as a huge red flag. Thats such a bad trait and some guys never get over it.

I disagree that BBIQ is irrelevant. Its hard to quantify and definitions of it vary but there are definitely guys who simply have a better feel and insticts. They can predict and see a couple moves ahead. I think rebounding and passing are the two areas that stand out the most. Some guys just see that pass that others don't. Rebounding is weird because you would think if a dude is big, can jump, and plays hard rebounding should come but I think its more a natural tallent than people think. Some dudes just have a nose for rebounds. I think its why its the stat that translates best from ncaa to pros, dudes who rebound in college rebound in the pros even when playing better and bigger competition.

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[bwgood77]

People on ESPN were talking about how this makes Milwaukee the team to beat in the East. I don't see how, but stranger things have happened. I still think that McDonough should have remained patient and waited until December 15th. This deal would have been there until the trade deadline.

I'm really excited for the Bucks. If motivated mini-LeBron is anything like motivated LeBron then we are in for a treat.

Funny thing is Bledsoe is probably like their 4th best passer. Middleton had 11 assists tonight. Brogdon has had triple doubles. I liked the way that team moved the ball and shot without Bledsoe so it will be interesting to see if he makes them better, or if it disrupts things a bit.

[batsmasher]

I disagree that BBIQ is irrelevant. Its hard to quantify and definitions of it vary but there are definitely guys who simply have a better feel and insticts. They can predict and see a couple moves ahead. I think rebounding and passing are the two areas that stand out the most. Some guys just see that pass that others don't. Rebounding is weird because you would think if a dude is big, can jump, and plays hard rebounding should come but I think its more a natural tallent than people think. Some dudes just have a nose for rebounds. I think its why its the stat that translates best from ncaa to pros, dudes who rebound in college rebound in the pros even when playing better and bigger competition.

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Ya of course. I've edited my post- I wasn't clear enough that was talking about BBIQ and feel relative to the effort you give. If anything, a dude should be more hungry to compete if their BBIQ/feel is failing them. The more I think about it the more I worry about Quese flaking.

[jredsaz]

People on ESPN were talking about how this makes Milwaukee the team to beat in the East. I don't see how, but stranger things have happened. I still think that McDonough should have remained patient and waited until December 15th. This deal would have been there until the trade deadline.

I have to disagree. I'm glad we moved on from it. We got a first and a decent player in Monroe on an expiering. I would have preferred Brogdon, Dimwittie, or Murray but those players weren't in the cards.

If this lasted into December there would have been issues with the NBAPA, Klutch, and the media. The organization made a change in the way they do business with the trade they made today - I hope.

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[sunsbum]

Quese throws little fits during the middle of plays multiple times a game. He's got to go before the league catches on.

[bwgood77]

Sure it's not, but the thing Quese specifically needs more than anything to become a good basketball player is to play as much basketball as possible. It's entirely possible that he literally has the least competitive basketball experience and real coaching of anyone in the NBA, he needs to play to develop a feel for the game. Attitude problems are quickly solved by winning, but winning isn't going to happen until he, someone we invested a high draft pick into, becomes a good basketball player. Plus Triano is very upfront with him and recently has even gone to Dudley in games while benching Bender and Chriss when they play poorly, so I'm sure Quese has heard plenty about his effort issues.

I can't believe this is coming from a college baller. You know better than anyone that the combination of effort and talent is what differentiates those who succeed from the failures.

BBIQ and feel for the game are irrelevant to how much effort you give. A guy like Kanter has absolutely no idea how to defend a PnR but you can see he busts his ass in every other aspect of the game. Sure Quese might not have a clue in the world on how to time a shot block, a rebound. It's the laziness you see when something goes against him- that's inexcusable. That's a red flag for development.

And frankly I think the way we describe "talent" is all wrong. Being a committed, coachable, absorptive, adaptable player is just as much of a "talent" as a guys jumping ability or shooting ability. So maybe we should stop framing a dude like Quese as a "talented" young guy, because the reality is none of these "talents" ever eventuate without the NBA-level commitment on the court - something Quese is yet to demonstrate.

Watson is probably the single worst type of coach he could have had. He rewarded such behavior. Told him he was Draymond Green. I mean, he probably needs to be re programmed to some extent. It's not an excuse not to put in effort but hopefully he will just wake up once he realizes he is not going to be able to get away with that under a real coach.

He should lose his starting job if it continues though.

[LukasBMW]

If we're able to move Monroe to a contender for another late 1st, ESPN says we could possibly try to acquire Okafor.

So essentially, it could become Bledsoe for a Milwaukee 1st, another late 1st, and Okafor. That ain't bad.