Bucks News, Transactions, Trade Ideas

[pifhluk23]

T-10 days until Brook can be traded. Not sure if Giannis has to sign off on it and Brook is a good teammate, good guy, took less money? so all working against him being traded but Horst has surprised before.

[Dick Tate]

Giannis signed away his GM power when he took the extension.

[fam3381]

The 3pt variance thing is so wildly over rated as a metric. The difference between the best 3pt shooting team in the league (OKC at 39.7%) and the worst (MEM at 33.3%) seems huge at 6.4%. But, on average teams are shooting about 35 3s per game and converting on 39.7% vs 33.3% only adds about 5-6 points per game. And thats the spread between the best and worst.

The spread between best and average (Warriors shooting 36.9%) you are only talking about 3 points per game.

The Bucks luck there could shift quite a bit and it wouldn't materially impact scoring defense.

I think you just laid out very nicely how swinging from good luck to bad luck is actually *extremely* material -- 6 points worse would swing the Bucks into "worst defense in league history" range, while improving even by 3 pts would put them ahead of Miami at 13th (which isn't really feasible when you're already lucky, but just to give a sense of the magnitude of the swing). From an expected win perspective, swinging 3 points plus or minus over a full season would be like adding or subtracting 7-8 expected wins.

[sidney lanier]

One thing I always liked about Chicken Little: yes, he thought the sky was falling, but he wasn't so arrogant that he thought those who didn't believe him were idiots.

Jeremiah, a prophet of doom
Would feel right at home in our chatroom
Where to seem perspicacious
You make charges fallacious
And to seem smart the worst you assume

I suppose Malthus thought everyone else was stupid when they failed to heed his warning of imminent starvation and extinction 200 years ago. Could still happen, of course, but for a couple of centuries the system has self-corrected, as dynamical systems sometimes do.

And that's the main problem I see with those predicting disaster for the Bucks. Their predictions are based on a negative construction placed on current state, but they fail to understand that whatever this team is next week, next month, or come playoff time, it will not be what it is now.

[KidA24]

One thing I always liked about Chicken Little: yes, he thought the sky was falling, but he wasn't so arrogant that he thought those who didn't believe him were idiots.

Jeremiah, a prophet of doom
Would feel right at home in our chatroom
Where to seem perspicacious
You make charges fallacious
And to seem smart the worst you assume

I suppose Malthus thought everyone else was stupid when they failed to heed his warning of imminent starvation and extinction 200 years ago. Could still happen, of course, but for a couple of centuries the system has self-corrected, as dynamical systems sometimes do.

And that's the main problem I see with those predicting disaster for the Bucks. Their predictions are based on a negative construction placed on current state, but they fail to understand that whatever this team is next week, next month, or come playoff time, it will not be what it is now.

They are 7th in the league in SRS, in danger of falling to 9th behind New Orleans and Houston.

Their record is not equating to their current level of performance.

We are nearly to the halfway point of the season and your expectation improvement is well noted, but where, oh where, is your proof of it?

[sidney lanier]

One thing I always liked about Chicken Little: yes, he thought the sky was falling, but he wasn't so arrogant that he thought those who didn't believe him were idiots.

Jeremiah, a prophet of doom
Would feel right at home in our chatroom
Where to seem perspicacious
You make charges fallacious
And to seem smart the worst you assume

I suppose Malthus thought everyone else was stupid when they failed to heed his warning of imminent starvation and extinction 200 years ago. Could still happen, of course, but for a couple of centuries the system has self-corrected, as dynamical systems sometimes do.

And that's the main problem I see with those predicting disaster for the Bucks. Their predictions are based on a negative construction placed on current state, but they fail to understand that whatever this team is next week, next month, or come playoff time, it will not be what it is now.

They are 7th in the league in SRS, in danger of falling to 9th behind New Orleans and Houston.

Their record is not equating to their current level of performance.

We are nearly to the halfway point of the season and your expectation improvement is well noted, but where, oh where, is your proof of it?

My crystal ball is in for repairs. I have no proof. But citing trailing stats is the opposite of predictive as well. And that ultimately is my point. We know what this team is now, and the stats you cite are useful in painting that picture, but nobody knows what this team will be. That being the case, what reasonable assumptions can be made about the future?

[TroyD92]

Bobby for Kuminga + filler

[TroyD92]

Bobby
Sideshow Bob

for

Kuminga
GP II

[Plossum]

I would love to get Kuminga but it’s gonna take a whole lot more than what we have to offer.

[Ron Swanson]

You guys are operating like this is still 2021. It's Year 3 of Kuminga and he's still a raw, all-physical-tools guy that might never be a decent playoff rotation piece. I seriously doubt his value is that high right now. I think it's more that people are desperate for a couple athletic, lottery ticket talents to salvage whatever we can with the current defensive scheme and hope that whoever's coaching in 2024-25 can turn him into a useful player.

[KidA24]

One thing I always liked about Chicken Little: yes, he thought the sky was falling, but he wasn't so arrogant that he thought those who didn't believe him were idiots.

Jeremiah, a prophet of doom
Would feel right at home in our chatroom
Where to seem perspicacious
You make charges fallacious
And to seem smart the worst you assume

I suppose Malthus thought everyone else was stupid when they failed to heed his warning of imminent starvation and extinction 200 years ago. Could still happen, of course, but for a couple of centuries the system has self-corrected, as dynamical systems sometimes do.

And that's the main problem I see with those predicting disaster for the Bucks. Their predictions are based on a negative construction placed on current state, but they fail to understand that whatever this team is next week, next month, or come playoff time, it will not be what it is now.

They are 7th in the league in SRS, in danger of falling to 9th behind New Orleans and Houston.

Their record is not equating to their current level of performance.

We are nearly to the halfway point of the season and your expectation improvement is well noted, but where, oh where, is your proof of it?

My crystal ball is in for repairs. I have no proof. But citing trailing stats is the opposite of predictive as well. And that ultimately is my point. We know what this team is now, and the stats you cite are useful in painting that picture, but nobody knows what this team will be. That being the case, what reasonable assumptions can be made about the future?

So, because you said so is your reasoning.

The journey they've made over the past 5 months has shown that they are still pressuring the ball 40 feet from the basket, going over screens against non-shooters and completely ignoring basic NBA defensive premises, like cheating a 3rd player from the weak side into the lane to defend the pick and roll.

That those three things have not been corrected is coaching malpractice as they are already engrained into veteran NBA players and are really, really easy fixes.

The fact that Giannis sits out of the play, face up on a guy in the corner on defense more often than not is something that Griff has told him to do.

Allowing teams to take what might be the single best roving defender in NBA history out of the play by putting his guy in the corner is coaching malpractice.

But hey, I'm sure they'll magically change all these things because you say so.

[Ron Swanson]

FWIW, I don't actually think that Brook + stuff for Wiggins and Kuminga is a good trade that helps our championship odds, so we're all likely just wish-casting a bad trade into existence. But the thought of completely exhausting all excuses for Griffin ("we got you players that fit your scheme and the defense still sucks, coach") is at least in the back of my mind....

[Badgerlander]

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[pifhluk23]

FWIW, I don't actually think that Brook + stuff for Wiggins and Kuminga is a good trade that helps our championship odds, so we're all likely just wish-casting a bad trade into existence. But the thought of completely exhausting all excuses for Griffin ("we got you players that fit your scheme and the defense still sucks, coach") is at least in the back of my mind....

Both guys career below league average 3p% and both shooting terrible from 3 this year. That's a hard pass from me, rather take my chances with Slopez and Beasley.

[German Athens]

We’re really up against the clock with Brook.

With the way we’re trying to play, his impact on the court has been significantly less valuable to us. Do we trade him now, wait, or hold him through his contract?

If we wait, his value may be significantly less, because other teams may be incapable of determining whether he’s just being used incorrectly, or if his age has really just caught up with him.

I’ve always thought in previous seasons to hold onto him until he retires, but with his salary being what it is, and our very limited asset pool, there’s more urgency around him than ever before.

It also raises a few questions about what we’re trying to do as an organization:

if we knew we wanted to make all these schematic changes, why did we we bring him back?
OR
If we knew we wanted to bring Brook back, and we also knew what schematic changes Griff wanted to implement, why did we hire Griff?

[humanrefutation]

We kept Brook because we held his bird rights. We had to re-sign him because it's not like that money could have been spent otherwise.

But I'm absolutely open to trading him if we get some quality players who can handle POA defense. I'm certain we can find a serviceable big man to cover for him.

[TroyD92]

Who are the teams that actually want Brook though. It has to be a contender or atleast borderline

[JayMKE]

Part of why Houston wanted to pay Lopez so much was to just get to the salary floor, not sure there will be as many interested parties now.

[TroyD92]

I can envision a market for Bobby and even Pat to a much smaller extent, but Brook is such a niche player. How many teams actually run defenses that he can be plugged into. Nobody is building their defense around him like the Bucks did at this point in the season.

[soxperry]

Those 30 games they have played:

Brooklyn twice (without multiple starters), Detroit Twice, Portland, Chicago three times and Washington twice.

That's 1/3 of their games against the bottom 6 in the league in their ability to score.

It would be difficult to not have an average defense over that stretch.

Also we've been extremely lucky in terms of opponent 3PT shooting over that stretch as well, literally the lowest opponent 3PT% by a decent margin on wide open 3s. And 5th lowest on open 3s.

If we keep playing the caliber of defense we're playing without changes, when the schedule actually starts to get difficult and opponent 3PT shooting numbers on open and wide open 3s start regressing closer to the mean, it'll be ugly.

The 3pt variance thing is so wildly over rated as a metric. The difference between the best 3pt shooting team in the league (OKC at 39.7%) and the worst (MEM at 33.3%) seems huge at 6.4%. But, on average teams are shooting about 35 3s per game and converting on 39.7% vs 33.3% only adds about 5-6 points per game. And thats the spread between the best and worst.

The spread between best and average (Warriors shooting 36.9%) you are only talking about 3 points per game.

The Bucks luck there could shift quite a bit and it wouldn't materially impact scoring defense.

lol.. what??

you can't just decide that numbers dont matter because they seem small to you. that's a hilarious bit, though.