Post#6 » by lethalweapon3 » Sun Jan 13, 2019 5:37 pm
The Bucks stop here, at State Farm Arena, as Atlanta’s former NBA Coach of the Year, Mike Budenholzer, brings Milwaukee into State Farm Arena (3:30 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, Fox Sports Wisconsin). ATL’s reception for Coach Bud will be lukewarm, but will basically sound something like, “New Coach, New Team, New Arena… Who Dis?”
Coach Bud was a valuable taskmaster who came to an impressionable, young but playoff-steeled roster at the right time. Many an NBA player, now at locales around the league, can look back fondly at their time in Atlanta as the moment their career, their acclaim, and their bank accounts, took off.
The NBA story arcs of veterans like Kyle Korver and Thabo Sefolosha took an impressive, perhaps shocking, final upward turn. The trajectories of middling mid-20s players like Jeff Teague and Paul Millsap went from flat-lining to exponential. Lightly-regarded (if not altogether disregarded) talents like DeMarre Carroll and Junior Hardaway become sought commodities.
In the process, Bud’s whiteboard wizardry and his crack staff of whip-smart assistants made a dysfunctional team functional, a disrespectable team respectable, a routinely dismissible squad too difficult to dis and miss. Even when the players on the floor for the Hawks didn’t give opponents pause, the guy directing their actions from the sideline sure did.
Budenholzer was many things for the Hawks organization. But he was rarely an effective salesperson, notably at free agency time. That the attractiveness of Atlanta, this top-tier entertainment-abundant market, as either a destination or a place to flag-plant for the NBA’s premier talents did not improve during his tenure was not at all his fault. But his meek approach to virtually everything off the court, be it local public relations or player negotiations, could not help him overcome his organization’s many zany public missteps.
The Hawks sorely needed a well-regarded head coach, a near-devout player developer, and a salesperson who can own any room, all wearing the same pair of shoes. By the looks of it, they’ve got a young coach who is up to the task in Budenholzer’s successor here, Lloyd Pierce. As KL Chouinard’s superb piece yesterday for Hawks.com reinforces, the Association is littered with pros who greatly respect what Pierce has done with them and for them in the recent past, what he is doing now in Atlanta, and where he is headed.
The ability to offer up blends of praise, constructive critique, and well-thought-out advice isn’t some skill LP can turn off or needs to turn on. He’s intimately familiar with the local legends of sports, entertainment and society that make Atlanta a special place to work, and he has no struggles conveying the unique qualities of his new NBA city or his team. He can get similarly as deep with his recollection of what worked and didn’t work in recent games, to media and to his players. Whether talking publicly, or in confidence with the mics off, Pierce’s expressed thoughts are lucid, not vapid.
When Atlanta decides to make The Big Move(s) that GM Travis Schlenk has hinted will eventually come, the players we woo will be interested in more than just the coach’s winning record. To seal summertime deals, and to keep the emerging talents we have, we won’t need real estate investment owners overconfident with their powers of personal persuasion.
We won’t need carnival-barking CEOs who are better-suited to the ticket-sales side of the equation, Hall of Fame co-owners who could just as easily be selling anyplace else in the league. Trotting out the hot rapper of the moment won’t be enough to impress upon hoopster headliners how cool it is working in Atlanta. Please, don’t try the Shoot dance, Mr. Koonin.
Few first-time head coaches get the opportunity Bud had to make chicken salad out of still-fresh and tender chicken. Usually, it’s about working with chicken waste, to put it nicely. In Atlanta, Budenholzer inherited a small core that was once lugged around by an annual All-Star in Joe Johnson, but still had a periodic All-Star center in Al Horford, and a clear point guard starter in Jeff Teague. He had a team that, for all its faults, was coming off five consecutive winning regular seasons and had no intentions of subsiding while rebuilding around them.
The distinction is instructive because, by jumping ship, Budenholzer gets a chance to build upon a pre-existing veteran core with first-round playoff experience, only this time with a league MVP contender in the middle of it. When you look at the roster going forward, though, this season may be the best chance Milwaukee will have to exploit this collaboration for a trip to the NBA Finals. Like any wise Jagermeister drinker, it literally could be one shot for the Bucks (29-12).
It’s not unreasonable to envision Eric Bledsoe and Malcolm Brogdon looking for bigger paydays this summer. Armed with his shiny, new three-point shot, Brook Lopez might be crazy enough to seek out other offers. That’s three unrestricted free agents, and three starters, for starters. A fourth starter, Khris Middleton, may not be worth maxing out, not in Milwaukee, anyway. Those scenarios might leave Giannis and Coach Bud home alone, and those events are more likely to transpire if the Bucks flop in the postseason.
Who’s coming back, for sure, if they aren’t traded or bought out? The newly acquired George Hill, on an $18 million deal that expires next year. Tony Snell. Ersan! D.J. Wilson, Pat Connaughton, rookie 1st-rounder Donte DiVincenzo (hiding here, for the record, that I wanted him so badly with Pick #19 in the draft, but he was “stolen” from me and I had to settle for this Kevin Huerter kid. Doggone it!), Christian Wood. Them’s the dudes. And, probably, a low 1st-rounder.
What will be the perception of the Bucks’ conquering hero coach if, four months from now, for some reason, Milwaukee isn’t still playing in the playoffs. Now, you’re going to need a salesperson. Sure, on paper, it looks easy: “Who wants to take our money to play with The Greek Freak?” But I’m sure New Orleans thought their market got a nice upgrade in appeal when Anthony Davis fell into their lap, too.
Co-owner Wes Edens’ daughter, Mallory, didn’t help matters last summer by going in, with bitter-beer-faced sub-tweets and sub-Grams, on DeMarcus Cousins. Then you’ve got Bud, with his “wellheknowshowmuchhemeanstous hessuchagreatplayer hedoessomuchforus” garble behind the least infectious smile in pro basketball. How many Discount Double Checks will it take from Aaron Rodgers to help reel somebody in?
It’s not going to be easy to build around Giannis in the immediate future. And the Freak goes contract shopping in 2021, so Bud may not want to be holding the keys for a Horford redux. If he finds himself saddled with spinning gold out of the likes of Jaylen Morris and Tyler Cavanaugh once more, by summer 2020, don’t put it past Bud to seek out something shiny (spurs) and tear up the final two years on his deal, once again. That’s why the players Coach Bud fields right now are going after the Bucks’ first NBA Finals since the Kareem ‘n Oscar era in 1974, as hard as they post-up when Trae Young is trying to guard them.
The Wizards helped tenderize another opponent for the Hawks, drowning Milwaukee in a bunch of three-pointers on Friday night along the way to a 113-106 win. But Atlanta probably won’t have the fortune they had in Philadelphia, with Joel Embiid being a late scratch as the Hawks rode a momentary career-defining day from rookie Kevin Huerter and a season-best 55.6 team FG% clip to pull off the 123-121 upset. Giannis Antetokounmpo (sore quad/bruised hip) is likely to return to action today, while Bledsoe (sore hammy) has the same status as of noon today.
Behind Bled and Brogdon, the Bucks’ guards posted-and-toasted Atlanta to (stop me if you’ve heard this part before) a season-high in points, during their 144-112 victory in Brewtown just nine days ago. Their 43-14 start to that game set (somebody, stop me!) a franchise record for their biggest lead entering a second quarter. Helping Giannis rest his keister for Toronto’s arrival the next day, twelve Buckaroos scored at least 8 points, the most players on one side of an NBA contest since the 1976-77 season, according to NBA.com stats.
So, you get the drift. Opponents that take their task seriously and apply foot to neck usually don’t have a tough time vanquishing Atlanta (13-29). The Hawks are a league-worst 2-20 in contests that finish with a double-digit margin. But like guys in the meme who rock Nike socks under their Sunday shoes, if you mess around and get dunked on in the name of our new lord, John Collins, for too long, chances are the outcome won’t go so well for you.
Atlanta’s 6-2 record, following the win in Philly, is the best in the NBA in contests where the final score in within 3 points’ differential. That’s as many victories as Denver (6-2), who for the moment rules the roost in the West. Milwaukee is the transverse: 20-3 in “blowout” games, 3-5 in super-close contests.
Giannis won’t need as much rest in his return to action as he enjoyed on January 4 (19.5 minutes, a second off his season-low), so the customary defensive rules apply. The bigs must continue to help Trae, but also the Hawk swingmen and forwards have to shift to keep Giannis and the Buck guards moving laterally, relative to the offensive glass. While they help out inside, another big needs to deal with Camp Lopez out beyond the three-point arc.
If those things happen, that levels the playing court enough to allow Young and Huerter to keep up at the opposite end. Alex Len can again help Collins and Dewayne Dedmon (sprained ankle, questionable) keep a frontcourt rotation going for Pierce, provided the latter two don’t soak up inopportune fouls in the early going, with Omari Spellman available in a pinch.
If all those good things come to pass, this afternoon, Hawks fans can sit back and enjoy a lot more Budfaces late in the game. For all you do, Atlanta, this Budface is for you!
Let’s Go Hawks!
~lw3
"Dunking is better than sex." - Shawn Kemp, 1996
