Bucks Roster this year is objectively better

[Diggr14]

Yeah this post is just dreaming.

AG was a hire to appease Giannis alone. Stotts effectively is the coach. I dont see that as a needle mover either way over Bud. Both sets of coaches are net negatives IMO. AG should not be a head coach. Just another player with a thin resume getting there because he made some friends along the way. Im sure he is a good man. He is probably liked by the players on the team. But we've been through this. Likeable and being able to strategize and get the most out of players are different things. It's really hard to get all 3. I see one at this point. I hope im wrong.

Giannis a year older - im not sure how much longer his body can hold up eurostepping all over the court like he does. He's a Jabari parker knee injury waiting to happen for years. Frankly im surprised he has been as healthy as he has been considering the punishment he doles out both to others and himself. It's not knocking him, it's been phenomenally effective for him. But the closer to 30 you get, being 7'0 and having long slight legs, I cant think that holds up the way he plays. He is super human though. So who knows. But if I am taking bets on him regressing in 2-3 years due to injury or just getting older and less explosive, i'd probably take that bet... but the guy is otherworldy, so who knows.

Khris - Khris is khashed. He will never be what he was a few years ago. They should have s&t him. I think it was a desperate move to re-up him. Maybe you had to because you thought a team like Houston would use their cap space on him, and you get nothing... but being hooked on him for several more years. We will regret it.

Jrue - Jrue is a nice regular season guy. Jrue is a great man. Jrue is just on the wrong side of 30 and not as efficient offensively as you'd like him to be in the playoffs.

Brook - speaking of guys that have stayed healthy and I would have bet against it is this guy. He had chronic back problems for years and has been a rock for us for several seasons. Who knew. However, in todays NBA, he can not cover stretch 4's or 5s that can shoot. He's a huge liability against teams like Boston that will run a 5 out there that can shoot... or if teams go small. We do not utilize him in the post at all, where he lived the first half of his career. This boggles my mind.


The rest - objectively i think the team is similar, maybe slightly better on the 5-10 slots. I think they will stay healthier at least. Still, unless someone can really provide a sparkplug of offense from this group, I really dont see it being a huge difference than last season. I think the x-factor is Beauchamp. If he takes the next step or him and someone else take a step forward, then I think we have a shot at emerging from the east. If these guys play to expectations, I dont think we get by the ECF or round prior due to lack of scoring punch and regression from the top 4.

[chonestown]

If I'm being objective? No.

The important distinction to point out though? Much like each of the last two champions since us (Denver, Golden State). We didn't necessarily need to.

I know we need something to chew on in the offseason, but this is pretty much right.

At this point, Khris and Jae are ready for the start of the season as opposed to unavailable for months.

Marshon looks to be at least a back-end of the rotation guy.

If AJJ can become playable, there's your glue/energy/multi-position defender. I'm not expecting his shot to be anything more than below-average this year. Going to be up to the coaching staff to find a way to take advantage of what he can offer. He has attributes that can allow him to find a spot this year but the imperative is on the coaching staff to highlight his positives and avoid putting him in situations where he's a liability.

It's no super deep analysis, but it'll come down to health, reasonable internal improvement and playoff matchups. <shrugs>

[MickeyDavis]

Too many unknowns. Last year's roster was the 1 seed. Then flopped (yes Giannis getting hurt was a big part of that). We really can't judge this years roster until the playoffs. We could very well have a worse RS record but be a better team. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Dick Tate]

Objectively the thread title should've used the word subjectively.

[chonestown]

Objectively the thread title should've used the word subjectively.

Literally crapped my pants when I saw the thread title.

[skbucks1985]

We've got the 2 ends of the spectrum covered...

[crkone]

I see the Bucks as worse in the regular season (younger, new system) and a big old question mark in the post season with the now significant injury history with Giannis and Mids.

[GHOSTofSIKMA]

I dont know how everybody isnt crapping their pants in fear that our run is completely over based on the coach we got coming in. George Karl to Terry Porter 2.0

i know its possible we get better but the odds are overwhelmingly not in our favor based simply on the historical evidence of moves like this

[Ron Swanson]

I guess I understand the pessimism if you're back in the pre-2021 mindset of regular season goodness means less than nothing, but it's still wild to me that people dismiss this team winning 58-games last season while basically without Middleton for half the year.

Feels like people tend to always think of these things as some sort of binary arms race (the offseason winners/losers), but absent some superstar acquisition, history tells us that the already good teams who kinda just stay the course and add a quality rotation piece or two tend to do better in the championship equity department than the teams that panic and shuffle the entire roster around their superstar at the first sign of major decline. If you're of the opinion that "this core can't win a championship anymore", then I'd argue that it doesn't matter what they would have done this offseason anyways, because the alternative would just be tearing it down and setting up a future without Giannis (especially in light of his most recent comments).

[paulpressey25]

Marshon looks to be at least a back-end of the rotation guy.

This is the key. Can MarJon be a top 8 rotation player on a contender. Not out of necessity, but that he's earned the spot.

Our whole problem the last five years is Horst's inability to bring in even one young guy, who is a clear rising young player. Doesn't need to be an all-star, but even a guy who becomes Shane Battier or Norm Powell quality.

[MVP2110]

Marshon looks to be at least a back-end of the rotation guy.

This is the key. Can MarJon be a top 8 rotation player on a contender. Not out of necessity, but that he's earned the spot.

Our whole problem the last five years is Horst's inability to bring in even one young guy, who is a clear rising young player. Doesn't need to be an all-star, but even a guy who becomes Shane Battier or Norm Powell quality.

We had one of those and then we traded him away for the corpse of Serge Ibaka

[GHOSTofSIKMA]

i still cant believe we dealt the picks that became powell and OG for grievous vasquezular spasms.

[GHOSTofSIKMA]

Marshon looks to be at least a back-end of the rotation guy.

This is the key. Can MarJon be a top 8 rotation player on a contender. Not out of necessity, but that he's earned the spot.

Our whole problem the last five years is Horst's inability to bring in even one young guy, who is a clear rising young player. Doesn't need to be an all-star, but even a guy who becomes Shane Battier or Norm Powell quality.

We had one of those and then we traded him away for the corpse of Serge Ibaka

allen, portis, ddv, patc.... all young when they arrived and all virtually instant cheap lasting contributions in the rotation as the roll descibed. maybe now beasley can add to that list.

drafting dudes into that roll is exceedingly rare with the lack of picks and draft position of any contender but weve done a great job bringing in others in lieu of that. The premise that the depth of our bench or future has been hindered because we havent "brought young guys in" for secondary roles just doesnt resonate with me.

i would agree we havent hit anything out of the park maybe like we did briefly with brogdon. thats how id put it

asuming we keep making great young complementary additions, as we have.... it will boil down to how long we run with giannis, khris, jrue, and brook in the primary roles. that and obviously AG now an unproven rookie players coach to help facilitate the players coaching themselves.....instead of Bud at the top..... is the crux of the thing

[Shaffty]

Coach Bud, outside of cleaning up all the low hanging fruit that coach kidd had left on the tree, was a bad coach for most of his time here.

[MVP2110]

Coach Bud, outside of cleaning up all the low hanging fruit that coach kidd had left on the tree, was a bad coach for most of his time here.

This just isn't true

[GHOSTofSIKMA]

Coach Bud, outside of cleaning up all the low hanging fruit that coach kidd had left on the tree, was a bad coach for most of his time here.

the criticism of Bud and the criticism of Giannis, Jrue and Khris seems strikingly similar to me. Amazing obvious talent and accomplishment with uniquely obvious, identifiable.... and perhaps uncorrectable flaws.

and fixing low hanging fruit as you put it resulted in the top offense and defense in the league the following year..... top record in the league 3 out of 5 years.....coach of the year and a championship.

i think the hope is that griffin can keep everything in tact from the Bud years and clean up some low hanging fruit. Unlike Bud who changed literally every last bit of everything Kidd had instituted with instant and monstrous success.... i think the last thing this team needs is a major overhaul. Perhaps simply a new voice and a bit of a willingness to adapt in pressure situations to what the players feel most confident in.

The fear for me is we dont have players who are hardwired for that role. Personally i feel like it will fail miserably but then again what do i know...subjectively

[Badgerlander]

Marshon looks to be at least a back-end of the rotation guy.

This is the key. Can MarJon be a top 8 rotation player on a contender. Not out of necessity, but that he's earned the spot.

Our whole problem the last five years is Horst's inability to bring in even one young guy, who is a clear rising young player. Doesn't need to be an all-star, but even a guy who becomes Shane Battier or Norm Powell quality.

I think he will get minutes because they want him to be a top 8 rotation guy but his jumper still needs a lot of work.

[CharityStripe34]

There's no way of knowing what the team may look like without seeing how they'll play under Griffin/Stotts. I don't expect anything dramatically different, especially with an older veteran roster (largely), as far as minutes distribution, scheme, load-management, etc.

[LUKE23]

This roster was slow last year and is a year older where it matters at three of their four most important players (Midds, Jrue, Lopez). Marjon and Dre are still both massive unknowns. AG is a massive unknown.

I do believe they tried to get a little more athletic with the Dre and Beasley additions, but I think they are clearly worse at backup PG next year (Carter was an underrated player even if he wasn't a true floor general) and even if Beasley starts he and Grayson are pretty much a push to me. Marjon is the one player that could swing this but even then, how high is his ceiling, really?

It comes down to Midds being healthy all season and Lopez not falling off from last year, among other things. Both of those are very iffy to me.

[Shaffty]

Coach Bud, outside of cleaning up all the low hanging fruit that coach kidd had left on the tree, was a bad coach for most of his time here.

This just isn't true

what improvement did he make after he originally set it up?