Bucks Offseason Thread - Trade, news, re-tool discussion

[paulpressey25]

Bud looked like a broken man after the game last night. He's aging like a US president ages. They might give him the "mutual parting of ways" designation and for once it might not be 100% BS.

If I were Bud, I'd take the buyout money and sit back and rest for a year.

[Antinomy]

Giannis also needs to realize being a human bowling ball is going to destroy him.

over the bud years....the two seasons giannis led the league in usage we both had epic meltdowns in playoffs.

i harped on his usage early in the year about how awful we looked playing that way but maybe its not a coincidence. basketball is a team game

After 5 years, apparently Bud didn’t realize that Giannis driving from 30 feet away & trying to maneuver past multiple defenders wouldn’t be the best use of his skill.

[yannisk]

Giannis scored a career high 31 ppg, but it was a down year.

games played down, advanced stats down, efficiency down, only 0.8 spg and bpg, FT% down, midrange shots down, 3p% down. Let's hope it was an exception and not the start of a decline

Middleton was injured most year. Jrue was good in the regular season , but he always is an offensive liability in the playoffs. There is too much Bledsoe in him.

Between injuries and load management we never had the team jelling. Teams keep talking about turning the switch for the playoffs but it rarely happens. Usually teams build their identity during the regular season and curry it to the playoffs. Somehow we got the first seed but we were really underwhelming losing almost all the games against top teams

With our lack of assets I see that we have two different routes either we just replace the coach and hope the new one can get something more from the same group. Or we do a mini rebuild which means probably next year we are worse and we waste one prime Giannis year.

[Antinomy]

idk i felt like the team was mentally defeated as soon of Giannis got hurt after getting punched in the mouth the first 10 minutes, deer in headlights. They didn't know what to do and didn't believe they would win, pissed their pants. Miami had supreme confidence start to end, they knew what they were going to do and got even more confident with their success. We couldn't stop Jimmy and couldn't outshoot them, a total mismatch.

I really believe Giannis could’ve played in Game 3 but they tried to steal him some rest for one more game.

Even then, I don’t believe they ever thought the Heat would beat them in this series.

I don’t think it became real until Game 4 when that 13 point lead slowly started to dwindle & suddenly the Heat were breathing down their necks to go up 3-1

Game 5 was basically like PTSD. Bud & Jrue were clearly becoming unhinged as the 4th quarter progressed & Giannis completely faded by taking some of the worst shots I’ve seen.

Jimmy dominated, but we never have him any different looks. I doubt he averages anywhere near 38ppg against any other team in these playoffs.

[Antinomy]

Coaching always plays a role.

Look at the GS-SAC series.

If you had just watched Games 1-2, you’d think that GS was overmatched — Fox, Monk & Sabonis were destroying them.

Steve Kerr started trapping Fox, making him play in a crowd, high hedging, blitzing, switching the matchup between Wiggins-Green-Payton, etc

It’s paid dividends & has forced SAC to try & play thru others.

Yet Bud allows other teams to dictate matchups & pace.

Look at how crowded our offensive possessions look vs how spread out Miami or Boston’s was while playing us.

[Ron Swanson]

The whole team looked like they quit the second they saw yet another huge 4th quarter lead start to evaporate. I don't think I've ever seen a group of such veteran experienced, championship winning players just completely fold like that.

This is why I really don't know how to evaluate this squad. We know they tend to have these moments of fleeting *insert more appropriate word here* when the intensity ramps up, but there's no way looking at the last 6-playoff series before this that you conclude that this group as a whole is this bad in the clutch. Hell, they had the best W/L record in the entire league by a country mile in clutch situations this year (27-8). It almost defies logic how they could meltdown like this.

I think the players didn't buy into the coaching after they got handled in game 1. They saw the issues and just knew that there wasn't going to be enough strategy or even trust from the coaches to put them in a place to succeed and that led to poor strategy and play. Couple that with being down 2-1, then 3-1, it's gotta be tough mentally to know that if you lose you're done. Couple those things with the fact that they were a 1 seed and the best team in the NBA, makes for quite the forcing of things and inefficiencies. That is all on coaching and preparation.

Also, maybe, JUST maybe, the loss to the Celtics in March really affected them as a group. That was supposed to be the game that we show we can beat Boston and play them hard and throw some wrinkles their way and they got clowned. Part of me thinks that has stuck with them and effected them mentally.

Except none of this really jives with what happened afterwards. We absolutely blew them out the next game without Giannis. And then in 2 of the next 3 games, they had double-digit leads heading into the 4th quarter. You don't play well enough for 3 quarters to have those kinds of leads in Games 4&5 if you're a team that's already "demoralized" after Game 1. They just couldn't close out two massive leads when their season depended on it. I'm not convinced there's an easy answer here.

[tydett]

Bud looked like a broken man after the game last night. He's aging like a US president ages. They might give him the "mutual parting of ways" designation and for once it might not be 100% BS.

If I were Bud, I'd take the buyout money and sit back and rest for a year.

And then take his pick of the jobs that become available next offseason. Dude could definitely wind up coaching Anthony Edwards as he matures into a superstar or be brought in to fix the Pelicans.

[ABucksFan]

Would you trade Giannis for the #1 Pick this year (Victor)?

[Turk Nowitzki]

Would you trade Giannis for the #1 Pick this year (Victor)?

Nope

[skones]

The difference in this series was Butler going absolutely nuclear to close out the series. We saw both Middleton and Giannis do the same at times during our Championship run. We didn't have anyone do that in the fourth quarter in either of the last two games. Sometimes that's the difference.

I don't get the doom and gloom towards Middleton to be honest. Really bad luck injury season with the knee, which affected him on the defensive end. All things considered, I'd say the 24/6/6 on 46.5/40.6/86.7 is highly encouraging.

I don't understand Jrue at all. Dude is CLEARLY a smart basketball player but does so much stupid **** in the playoffs. It's absolutely maddening.

[Daver]

I know the msjority of this board thinks very highly of charles lee but would the majority of this board be up with lee becoming the HC is buddy is fired or doesnt this board want anyyhing to do with buds assts.

[ABucksFan]

The more I think about it, the most likely change is just a new head coach and minor changes not affecting the core. Let the new coach give their take with this roster. You make decisions after next year.

[Wonka]

I keep refreshing every site I frequent waiting for a firing announcement. I know some of us are in our Bud feelings right now, but I do feel for the guy, can't imagine how he has been feeling since the game ended. He'll end up on his feet somewhere, it's just a shame he couldn't find ways to adapt or get the most out of his talent when we needed it the most.

[Daver]

The more I think about it, the most likely change is just a new head coach and minor changes not affecting the core. Let the new coach give their take with this roster. You make decisions after next year.

Abdolutely agree sometimes all it takes is a HC that has a o plan a new set of ideas to wake everyone up

[PG Graveyard]

Bud looked like a broken man after the game last night. He's aging like a US president ages. They might give him the "mutual parting of ways" designation and for once it might not be 100% BS.

I would love to have Bud as POBO or something like that but he shouldn’t be coaching our team anymore. This is an easy call at this point

[FrieAaron]

Running it back and expecting a head coach to resolve the BBIQ issues and apparent disinterest seems like a reach to me, but I guess it would make a neat experiment.

[machu46]

Coaching always plays a role.

Look at the GS-SAC series.

If you had just watched Games 1-2, you’d think that GS was overmatched — Fox, Monk & Sabonis were destroying them.

Steve Kerr started trapping Fox, making him play in a crowd, high hedging, blitzing, switching the matchup between Wiggins-Green-Payton, etc

It’s paid dividends & has forced SAC to try & play thru others.

Yet Bud allows other teams to dictate matchups & pace.

Look at how crowded our offensive possessions look vs how spread out Miami or Boston’s was while playing us.

It's kinda obvious, but it's a lot easier to spread the court when you shoot 60% from 3. And it's a lot easier to crowd the offense when they shoot 20% from 3. Miami put three shooters around Jimmy and Bam and everyone outside of Bam was making almost literally every shot so the defense couldn't afford to leave anyone open. On the flipside, with the way Giannis finishes inside, even if the Bucks shot it well, defenses will always leave shooters open to try to make life more difficult for Giannis and on top of that, our shooters sucked.

There's certainly ways to get creative to kinda trick the defense into not crowding the offense when they want to and that's something a new coach may be able to coax out of our group, but there's also just not much evidence that Giannis is capable of making those reads anyways; part of the reason Bud coached our guys to occupy certain spots on the floor is because Giannis isn't a quick enough decision maker to read everything while players are moving.

[Daver]

Bud looked like a broken man after the game last night. He's aging like a US president ages. They might give him the "mutual parting of ways" designation and for once it might not be 100% BS.

I would love to have Bud as POBO or something like that but he shouldn’t be coaching our team anymore. This is an easy call at this point

The fact that he admitted in his post game presser that he forgot he had a TO should be grounds to terminate right there.Everyone from NBATv to sirius radio nba said no way can bud come back after whst happened in game 4 n 5

[JayMKE]

Don't cry for Budenholzer, if he gets fired he'll get another job and would probably get another job after that even if he got **** canned again. Go coach Orlando or the Wizards or whatever.

[soboMP3]

Bud looked like a broken man after the game last night. He's aging like a US president ages. They might give him the "mutual parting of ways" designation and for once it might not be 100% BS.

I would love to have Bud as POBO or something like that but he shouldn’t be coaching our team anymore. This is an easy call at this point

The fact that he admitted in his post game presser that he forgot he had a TO should be grounds to terminate right there.Everyone from NBATv to sirius radio nba said no way can bud come back after whst happened in game 4 n 5

I was pretty much drunk questioning it, and Spo questioned it. Bud needs to be gone.