I think those arguing against Giannis by minimizing this season's Bucks championship run or questioning whether he can replicate what he did individually in this season's playoffs are making a mistake. Ironically, in future years I think it'll be clear that as a team/coach/strategy, this year's Bucks
barely grazed the surface for what they can be and that this year's team will be considered their floor in future years. I wrote back in...wow, March of 2018...that Giannis was the next evolution of LeBron, with similar impact and upside, as long as he was utilized more as a PF/C (vs LeBron's point-forward ascension). That his career arc would be similar to LeBron's, just offset by 10 years. And if you look at their individual results from 2008/18, 2009/19, 2010/20...etc...there are pretty eerie similarities.
But, I'm digressing. My point is, Giannis has been playing on roughly the level he played this season for the multiple years, and he will continue on that level or higher as an individual impact player moving forward. What changed for the Bucks' team results, this season, was part and parcel tied to better personnel and a better approach. The "wall", so to speak, that the Bucks' team ran into in previous years was that they were trying to utilize Giannis (or Giannis was wanting to play) like point-forward LeBron, not PF/C LeBron. Giannis was good enough to be a multiple-MVP and put up absurd individual stats in that role, but to be maximized individually (and for the team results to be maximized) they needed him to move to the interior. Which meant they needed perimeter players capable of performing at a high enough level for Giannis to move off-ball. In 2020, the Bucks' starting backcourt of Bledsoe and Wes Matthews was emphatically NOT capable of doing that, especially in the postseason. Middleton was good enough, but he was being utilized more as a shooter/scorer and less as a ballhandler/creator, as they ceded those duties to Giannis. Which he couldn't do well enough when faced with a strong team defensive wall.
But, and this seems to be overlooked almost universally...if a team is building a WALL to stop one player, then they are dramatically weakening their ability to defend everyone else on the offense. So Giannis, even when facing an effective wall that lowers his own individual numbers, is having a mega impact on opposing defenses. He just needs/needed a supporting cast capable of taking advantage of the opportunities he created for them. This year, with Holiday/Di Vincenzo & more on-ball Middleton, he had a cast capable of doing that.
Di Vincenzo's injury in the first series of the playoffs was one of, IMO, the most underreported events of the playoffs. Not because Di Vincenzo was some type of hidden star, but because by the Bucks replacing him in the lineup with PJ Tucker, it pushed their team strategy right back into the more perimeter Giannis-centric approach that doomed them in previous years. Instead of playing off ball as a big man, Giannis was being relied upon again to create way too often from out top. And this happened just in time for the Brooklyn series, which was THE worst time it could've happened. Look at how Giannis did against the Nets in the regular season...they were a donut, and he TORCHED them. But in the playoffs, suddenly he can be credibly defended by
Blake Griffin? No, Donte's injury and Giannis trying to create more from out top led to even a weak defensive Nets squad being able to build enough wall that the Bucks' team offense went to borderline ineffective. THAT Bucks team did have to rely on luck and injury to get past the Nets, because they were playing stylistically with a hand tied behind their backs.
Anyway, this is getting long. My point is, the Bucks team that won this year is likely the worst Bucks team you're going to see during this iteration. Di Vincenzo will be back, and having won a chip there's a reasonable chance the Bucks can bring in better perimeter talent on the cheap with guys wanting to play with a champion. If/when they lock in their smarter strategy more firmly, with better perimeter talent AND the confidence/performance leap that comes with having won a title, the Bucks are set to make a leap next year. Unlike Vegas, at this moment I see the Bucks as the clear favorite to win the chip next year. And, back on topic, all of these "but the Bucks had an easy path" or "I need to see Giannis do it again" takes aren't going to age very well moving forward. Giannis is that deal. And he's headed for the top-10 of all-time lists with a bullet. And I'm happy to see that, for what appears to be a good dude and an enormously talented player.
(I personally still have Garnett rated significantly above Giannis, and even higher than the sky-like future I expect for Giannis. But that's because I think that, despite the "RealGM loves KG" perception, most people here still SIGNIFICANTLY underrate what Garnett was as a player. But that's another post for a different day, and besides I've spent much of the last two decades making that case so I won't add another book to this particular post on that subject
)
