Post-Mortem: 2021-22 Milwaukee Bucks

Coach Carter · Post #61 » by **Coach Carter** » Mon May 16, 2022 2:01 am

Injuries suck, I mean look at clippers and what they did minus kawhi against the eventual finalists. Can't have it all our own way. We were healthy last year bar the Giannis injury which he somehow recovered from. We're battle tested, we're champions and I believe our core can challenge again. I'll suggest a coaching change though.

Schmooftie · Post #62 » by **Schmooftie** » Mon May 16, 2022 2:04 am

I think if Middleton was playing they would have won this series... and likely repeated.
They are really not that far away, they just need another 1 or 2 more reliable guards / swingmen who can hit some open shots.

ElectricMayhem · Post #63 » by **ElectricMayhem** » Mon May 16, 2022 2:12 am

As plenty have said, no big changes are needed. Bring the core back, hope Connaughton and Portis opt in - if they don't, see if you can get away with paying them just a little more. None of the free agents are that vital. I'd try to swap them out for some other low cost guys who may give more production.

I was on the fence with firing Bud. Over the years, he's proven to be a great regular season head coach. He's also shown that he can win a championship. On the other hand, yes he won a championship, but I still don't think he's a great playoff coach. Deciding to keep him boils down to two things for me: 1) Who is available that's better? Unless you have a home run pick, don't mess with success. Middleton is coming back and they haven't been beaten in a series with their big 3 all healthy yet. 2) I feel like Giannis is big on loyalty, especially with a coach who guided them to a championship. I don't think he'd be pleased with Milwaukee dumping him.

Couch Potato · Post #64 » by **Couch Potato** » Mon May 16, 2022 2:29 am

Joshyjess wrote:Bucks are in great shape right now. It sucked for them not having one of their best players at such a critical time. I do think they need to make some minor changes to some role players, but the team as it stands now is well-positioned to make another deep playoff run next season. Most teams would LOVE to be in the position that the Bucks are right now.
Keep everybody, and just make some small tweaks to some of the role players. Also they need to get rid of Greyson Allen. That guy just brings bad mojo to the team.
Oh, and one more thing - FInd a color scheme that they can claim as their own. Green and White already belongs to the Celtics!

Luxury tax says hello. PATC and Bobby say hello. Lopez and Hill are done. Allen sucks now. Middleton coming off of a injury Holiday was kinda dull the whole series. Giannis was alone in the whole mess people. Team was meh.. Bud is stubborn. Horst has no assets. If I was owner. Bud's head be on a stick by now. and Horsts ass be on the line every second until draft or not if we even have a pick.

AussieCeltic · Post #65 » by **AussieCeltic** » Mon May 16, 2022 2:54 am

They don't need any drastic changes. A clean bill of health goes a long way. Obviously need to sure up the bench and those role players.

The interesting piece is Bobby Portis.

I listened to him on the Ryen Russillo show last off season and he said he gave the Bucks a massive discount to try run it back. Now they've lost, I think he'll try make that money up. What kind of money can the Bucks offer? Because I can see him getting the bag somewhere else.

DroseReturnChi · Post #66 » by **DroseReturnChi** » Mon May 16, 2022 3:09 am

champ squad. get healthy.

John Murdoch · Post #67 » by **John Murdoch** » Mon May 16, 2022 3:48 am

Run it back...reminds me of 2021 lakers when AD went down ..dont panic

vinnymate · Post #68 » by **vinnymate** » Mon May 16, 2022 3:57 am

All the people saying whether to fire Bud or not and who is better.

The thing is there is no guarantee you will find anyone better and that is okay.

Ime Udoka and Nick Nurse were/are all first year coaches and have outcoached Bud in their respective playoff series.

It's up to the GM to identify the right candidate, but it is also a risk

We know who Bud is. His stubborn, will run the drop scheme no matter what and very rarely adjusts or doesn't adjust in time.

I don't think he is a championship level coach even though he has one, he is very lucky to have a talent like Giannis.

It's like being in a relationship with someone who you feel comfortable about, but feel like it could be better. Are you going to break up and take the chance of finding someone better or will you stick with what you have knowing it will be mediocre for the rest of your life?

Bud is who he is. I would personally look for a new head coach, but I'm not the Bucks GM.

vinnymate · Post #69 » by **vinnymate** » Mon May 16, 2022 4:00 am

Pachinko_ wrote:
vinnymate wrote:
otmshank1 wrote:Do people really think PJ Tucker would have made a difference in this series? Y’all are delusional

Yeh for sure.

Toughness, defense, leadership, coaching and efficient shooting. PJ Tucker is shooting 48% from 3 in the playoffs this year. Based on how the Bucks shot from 3 in the series, he would of been very useful.

He would of allowed you guys to switch more over playing the limited drop defense. Even if Bud was resistant to doing it, I'm sure PJ Tucker would of been in his ear about it.

Have you ever seen Tucker create his own 3 point shot or take a 3 when not open? That is why the Bucks shot like that in this series, because they can't do that. Neither can PJ. If he's gonna stand in the corner waiting to chuck a wide open 3 we already got a bunch of guys who can do that.

If I'm hearing correctly you are saying it is a scheme problem in Milwaukee? then you need a new coach lol. Bud is who he is, he ain't changing for anyone.

If you are talking about personnel, how many shot creators does Miami have? I don't see a major difference.

th87 · Post #70 » by **th87** » Mon May 16, 2022 4:41 am

Breaks my heart to see this thread.

th87 · Post #71 » by **th87** » Mon May 16, 2022 4:57 am

vinnymate wrote:
otmshank1 wrote:Do people really think PJ Tucker would have made a difference in this series? Y’all are delusional

Yeh for sure.

Toughness, defense, leadership, coaching and efficient shooting. PJ Tucker is shooting 48% from 3 in the playoffs this year. Based on how the Bucks shot from 3 in the series, he would of been very useful.

He would of allowed you guys to switch more over playing the limited drop defense. Even if Bud was resistant to doing it, I'm sure PJ Tucker would of been in his ear about it.

Correct - PJ Tucker urged more switching last year and Bud listened. This year, it was back to what didn't work in 2019 and 2020.

th87 · Post #72 » by **th87** » Mon May 16, 2022 5:07 am

Pachinko_ wrote:We're good, run it back.

I would entertain the thought of a coaching change but the coaching rotation in the NBA seems closed and locked with the same retreads. The Top 3 players in the world are international, but for some reason the NBA thinks that top coaches can only come from the 4% of the global population that is the USA. It's a boys club, they're all friends of friends.

One day some organisation will see the light and understand that Euro coaches are simply better, a massive unexplored mine. When that happens there will be another gold rush in this copycat league. First 3-4 teams will get the best.

Until then stick with Bud or don't stick with Bud, whatever.

Any recommendations? Obradovic still not interested in the NBA?

Plossum · Post #73 » by **Plossum** » Mon May 16, 2022 5:20 am

At the end of the day, losing Midds is the biggest factor we couldn't get it done this year. Him playing opens a lot of things up for our team. Him being out meant other guys had to step into roles they just weren't capable of filling.

Bucks have some important decisions to make around the periphery this off season but the core of Jrue, Midds and Giannis is worth pushing ahead with for another few years.

Warriorfan · Post #74 » by **Warriorfan** » Mon May 16, 2022 5:20 am

Giannis is a super star but JRue and Lopez getting older

Pachinko_ · Post #75 » by **Pachinko_** » Mon May 16, 2022 5:41 am

th87 wrote:
Pachinko_ wrote:We're good, run it back.

I would entertain the thought of a coaching change but the coaching rotation in the NBA seems closed and locked with the same retreads. The Top 3 players in the world are international, but for some reason the NBA thinks that top coaches can only come from the 4% of the global population that is the USA. It's a boys club, they're all friends of friends.

One day some organisation will see the light and understand that Euro coaches are simply better, a massive unexplored mine. When that happens there will be another gold rush in this copycat league. First 3-4 teams will get the best.

Until then stick with Bud or don't stick with Bud, whatever.

Any recommendations? Obradovic still not interested in the NBA?

He's old and his face gets too red when he starts screaming, which is every 3 minutes, I'm worried about his blood pressure lol
Jasikevicius is my personal favourite, everybody loves that guy

MarcusBrody · Post #76 » by **MarcusBrody** » Mon May 16, 2022 5:50 am

I think the biggest issue for next year is Lopez's play (and availability). I've always thought that people didn't understand how key he was to the Bucks' D and how much his play frees up Giannis to do what he does best on defense. Without him this year, the Bucks defense was pretty pedestrian.

I didn't vote to fire Bud, but I also wasn't impressed with his schemes this series (though I missed some bucks wins, so sample bias). The offense in particular looked pretty static, with basically a "give it to Giannis and let him attack" approach. I think Giannis has as good a claim as anyone to the best player in the world title, but I don't think he's perfectly suited to that role as he's not a transcendent distributor. The Bucks needed some movement and sets to free up other players and make things easier for them when the Celtics were focusing on Giannis. When Bud came on the scene as a head coach, I never really thought his offenses were overly static, but they weren't great in this series.

LewisnotMiller · Post #77 » by **LewisnotMiller** » Mon May 16, 2022 5:58 am

I put them as being worse than I expected, and a treadmill team.
But basically I thought they'd finish #1 in the East preseason, so not like they were terrible, etc.

I'd keep the coach, assuming they can't grab a clearly better one. Bud isn't great in the big series, but he's a good regular season coach. Get a shot at Nurse, or Spo or something, I'm switching in a heartbeat, but I'm assuming that won't happen.

Tricky offseason. I think you roll with Holiday, Middleton and Giannis as your big three. Keep Lopez, hope that Portis and Connaughton stays. But around them you need to add flexibility. Holiday, Giannis and Middleton should give real optionality around playing big or small, man or switch. But it wasn't realised this year, for all that switching schemes were tried at times.

They were a system team, but Holiday and Giannis are very flexible defensive pieces.

The problem is, how do you fill around the 6 I mentioned.

Go get Garrison Matthews and Christian Wood from Houston?
Lopez and some sort of draft pick package.

I dunno. You can just run it back and have a decent shot at winning, tbh, but Hill looks cooked, Matthews is a useful defender only on some matchups, and I don't think you can trust Grayson Allen.

LewisnotMiller · Post #78 » by **LewisnotMiller** » Mon May 16, 2022 6:02 am

And if Portis leaves...
He's not great, but how do you replace him? And having a somewhat switchy big man who can space is important, I think.

Post #79 » by **Doctor MJ** » Mon May 16, 2022 6:09 am

Run it back. Make minor tweaks, but this team is clearly in a good place.

Re: Bud. I'm here for criticisms of him, but I would not seriously consider firing him right now. He just got a 3-year extension a year ago. Would revisit in a year.

Jables · Post #80 » by **Jables** » Mon May 16, 2022 6:12 am

Schmooftie wrote:I think if Middleton was playing they would have won this series... and likely repeated.
They are really not that far away, they just need another 1 or 2 more reliable guards / swingmen who can hit some open shots.

Is it really in doubt? Their second best player gone and they went to game 7, honestly they still should've been right in it if they didn't miss everything from 3.

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