This is truly disappointing with Giannis being injured as he's been literally carrying the team. The Hawks gave Trae a blueprint on how effective his teammates can be when the ball moves around and smart shots are obtained. If Trae can be like Steph and learn how to play w/o the ball and shoot in rhythm, he'll become a far more dangerous player. This team has a stable of young players vying for playing time. They need to give Okongwu and Reddish more as I've been impressed with Okongwu's ability to make life hard on Giannis and Reddish was impressive in putting the clamps on Middleton. I seriously have no idea why Nate didn't play him in game 3. If Reddish can overcome that mental block that's prevented him from being a better offensive player, sky's the limit for him.
As this series has shown it's like a tale of 2 cities on how to and not to build a team. Bucks are the latter of course and people can scapegoat Coach Bud as his speedometer can go from Bud light to Budweiser depending on how the game plays out and the big 3 being poor(Giannis air balling 3's and FT shots, Middleton and Jrue being underwhelming) and it's well deserved. If anything it's a symptom of a bigger problem which is pathetic leadership at the top. I'll give a breakdown of what the Hawks have done right and where the Bucks have gone wrong:
Atlanta2017-18: The stench of the Atlanta spirit group is cleansed as these weasels and their incompetence resulted in the Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg due to treating the team like the ugly red headed stepchild nobody wanted and were too busy suing each other. The scouting report on Luol Deng having a little "African" in him that was read by Danny Ferry results in him being canned and coach Bud becomes exec. Bud for the past few years. The ownership group is forced to sell as the memory of Sterling's rant is fresh in the minds of many and other disparaging comments forces them to sell and they are acquired by a group headed by Tony Ressler, a billionaire private equity investor who's married to the actress from the lost boys and has Grant Hill as a minority owner. A new chapter has been forged. Too bad the hockey team couldn't have been saved as I believe the fan base had been utterly turned off by the previous regime's apathetic mindset towards that product resulting in the folks staying away in droves.
The franchise has reached the end of the Al Horford/Millsap era as Al went to Boston for nothing, Teague was shipped to Indiana in a 3 way deal that nabbed them the rights to Taurean Prince and had just completed a S&T for Millsap where he was sent to Denver, Gallo to LAC and a HOU 2018 1st(Omari Spellman) went to the Hawks. Coach Bud and the team play poorly. This is the first year Travis Schlenk comes over from the Warriors and is hired to be GM. He manages to draft John Collins who slid down to 19th due to concerns about him being foul prone and wondering if his shot would translate to the league. The Baptist is named to the all-rookie team and has gotten better since.
Coach Bud and the Hawks agree to part ways as the team goes into a rebuild and he's replaced with Lloyd Pierce.
2018-19: Hawks end up doing well in the draft where they got the 3rd pick and trade the rights to Luka Doncic to Dallas for the 5th pick that's Trae Young and a lightly pro. 1st in 2019(top 5 pro., unpro. in 2020). Trae has great upside as a scorer and facilitator but questions are raised about his defense and whether he can be at least an average team defender(getting better). Then with their 2nd 1st acquired from Minnesota(Adrien Payne trade), they acquire Kevin Huerter from Maryland(Thanks Flip(RIP)) who has great size for a 2 guard and is an above average 3pt shooter. They draft Spellman with the HOU 1st and he's moved after 1 year to GS for a GS 26 2nd and Damion Jones. They draft Devonte Graham with the 34th pick and trade him to Charlotte for a 2019 2nd(Bol Bol)+23 CHA 2nd. They could've nabbed Mitchell Robinson who went 36th but oh well.
-They realize that Dennis Schroeder is becoming a headache off the court and got into legal problems outside a hookah bar in Atlanta. OKC looking to save money on their luxury tax bill fork over a lotto pro. 1st in 22(becomes 2 2nds in 24+25) plus Carmelo Anthony's expiring deal. Great deal for Schlenk as it removes any obstacles to Trae Young being able to play w/o any problems and saves them money on their cap sheet. This cap space allows them to eat Jeremy Lin's salary from the Nets along with 2 2nds(23+25) in exchange for a prospect+top 55 pro. 2nd.
-Team struggles immensely, but what did you expect from a rebuilding squad coming from the post Spurs east era? It ends up pretty well as this is the year that the lottery reforms are made with the flattened odds and they ultimately succeed in gaining Dallas's 1st. They manage to flip Taurean Prince's deal+21 2nd to Brooklyn in exchange for eating Allen Crabbe's deal+2 1sts(19+20) 2 weeks after the draft. Then they flip the 8th(Hayes)+17th(NAW)+35th(Louzada)+CLE 20 1st(became 2 2nds) to NO for the draft rights to Deandre Hunter+Solomon Hill. Pelicans wanted out of Hill's deal despite the fact they were rebuilding.
-They turn 2 bad contracts(Miles Plumlee+Solomon Hill) into 1(Chandler Parsons). Parsons is a great tank commander who can't play and they let his contract expire at the end of 2019-2020 in order to open up a roster spot.
2019-20: Young and the restless best describes this group as they had a lot of growing pains to go through. But it's not all for naught though as they manage to bring back Jeff Teague for Allen Crabbe! yay
The real caveat comes in the form of trading Evan Turner+the BRK 20 1st to Minnesota for Clint Capela. You now have a great lob finisher that Trae can feed the ball to and he's on a team friendly deal. The Rockets doubled down and failed miserably on small ball. Suckers!
They also managed to flip Alex Len and Jabari Parker to Sacramento for Dwayne Dedmon and 2 2nds(Skylar Mays+MIA 21 2nd)
Covid ruins the season and the Hawks are 1 of 8 teams not invited to the bubble. Who cares.
2020-21: Hawks end up taking Okongwu in the draft with the 6th pick. They sign playoff Rondo in the hopes of getting this team together, but age caught up to him and he's flipped to LAC for Lemon pepper Lou and 2 2nds(LAC 23+27). They also get Bogdan Bogdanovic for free as the Kings choose not to match his deal due to already having money committed to Buddy Hield and instead of doing a S&T where they could've gotten picks+a trade exception they get nothing. OKC on the other hand does a S&T for Gallo where they receive a $19.5M TPE and a top 55 pro. 2nd in 25. They've already used half of it on Meyers Leonard and obtained Miami's 27 2nd while creating a new $12.8M TPE for Ariza.
Lloyd Pierce has massively underachieved with this group and after 2.5 seasons it's decided that it's time to fire him. Nate McMillan is called upon to be the interim and the room has a sense of pessimistic optimism at best. In unforeseen circumstances, the team plays way better. A damning indictment on Pierce as his incompetence made Nate look like the 2nd coming of Red Auerbach.
Now the Hawks could potentially be facing a finals appearance for the 1st time since being in St. Louis. Perhaps they could break the curse of trading Dominique Wilkins to the Sterling era Clippers as the aftermath of that deal led the Hawks into 2.5 decades of irrelevance and pain. If they win a ring, he needs to get one as w/o him and Ted Turner, the team may have left altogether as the Atlanta Flames did for Calgary in 1980 due to the Omni Coliseum being one of the last stadiums in NA built w/o luxury suites which became a problem for the Hawks as well.
Milwaukee1) Their inability to draft and develop talent is frighteningly bad. They listened to Jason Kidd of all people simply b/c he was friends with Marc Lasry and it turned out that Kidd was a Trojan horse that wrecked the team. He was a joke of a coach in Brooklyn and proved to be just as useless in Milwaukee. He told them to pass on the Lakers pick that turned into Mikal Bridges(could've had SGA) all for Michael Carter-Williams who became fool's gold and was flipped to Chicago for Tony Snell who conned them out of a 4/46M deal.
They gave away an LAC 1st+2015 2nd to Toronto for Grievis Vasquez when Masai was willing to take a top 55pro. 2nd just to get out of his expiring deal after John Wall abused him. Those picks turned into OG Anunoby and Norm Powell while the extra 1st allowed them to flip Terrence Ross+the lower 2017 1st for Ibaka and allowed them to flip their 2018 1st to get out of Demarre Carroll's contract. Vasquez's ankle injuries caused him to retire in a year.
Funny thing is they drafted D.J. Wilson and Donte DiVincenzo in 17+18. Donte is actually not too shabby although I liked Huerter more but can't go wrong with a guard who can rebound well for his spot and looks decent. D.J. Wilson over John Collins though that was brutal. If they had kept the LAC 1st and had just given up the 2nd, they could've had Anunoby with Collins and Giannis as a front line, but they would've found a way to mess it up. Outside of Giannis, Middleton and Brogdon, they can't develop talent if their life depends on it which we'll get to later.
Coach Bud was brought in to replace Kidd and whoever the interim was. He's a floor raiser, but his stubbornness that pissed off Atlanta fans will soon infuriate Bucks fans.
2) Cutting corners and taking short cuts to success. They kept on signing and handing out bad contracts to a bunch of useless journeymen who clogged playing time that was needed for the players they were drafting. The depressing part was that they had 5 centres at one point that Thon Maker was reduced to a joke although his development was poor. Their lack of insight was a problem as they were so adamant about staying under the tax that they didn't want to acknowledge that Jabari Parker and Thon Maker were busts. If they had cut their losses after realizing how hopeless Parker was on defense(he didn't give 2 damns) and how Maker wasn't developing at all, they could've salvaged future picks for them. With the bad contracts, if they were smart, they could've saved their 1sts that they blew on Hill and Bledsoe and done something like this:
Sacramento: Greg Monroe, Spencer Hawes($22.4M combined), future 2nd
Phoenix: Mirza Teletovic(10.5M), Jabari Parker($6.7M), future 2nd
Milwaukee: George Hill(20M), Eric Bledsoe($14.5M)
-Kings traded Hill to Cleveland and had to eat Shumpert's deal. In this proposed deal, the Kings get out of that contract unscathed and save themselves $20M in future salary.
-Phoenix had no leverage as Bledsoe wanted out and keeping him around would've poisoned the locker room further. Mirza ended up developing blood clots in his lungs that ended his career. The Suns would've had no problem trading for him knowing that his cap hit would be removed from the team's books and they'd still be saving money vs paying Bled.
-Bucks take a flier on these 2 guys to see if they fit while consolidating the depth of the overcrowded front court.
If they had done this, it would've given Maker more time to develop and see how well he could've done. Truthfully it was a bad pick but not much you could do. They could've kept John Henson and Matt D w/o giving up picks. If they had kept those guys and not trade for Nikola Mirotic, it could've been different. They made a fatal error in giving Bledsoe an extension w/o waiting to see how well he did in the playoffs(he was bad) and his contract became a problem later on. All they had to do was resign Brogdon as he came off a 50/40/90 year and if things became untenable they could've flipped him for a better asset later on.
3) Getting cheap. Instead of paying Brogdon his money, they let him go to Indiana for a late 1st and a swap of 2nds. If they had kept Brogdon and stuck to the above, they could've made a deal with OKC for CP3 and Gallo:
Milwaukee: Danilo Gallinari, Chris Paul($61M combined)
OKC: Tony Snell($11M), George Hill(18M), Ersan(7M), John Henson, Matty D(Both at 19M combined), Thon Maker($3.8M), 2 future 1sts
-OKC gets that cap relief while getting under the tax and it allows them to be able to tank for a high lotto pick
-MIL gets the floor general they badly needed in order to get over the hump not to mention they get a 4 in Gallo who has great size and can stretch the floor and be a match up problem for others while allowing Giannis to be a 5.
Their lineup could've been something like this:
CP3/Donte
Brogdon/Brown
Middleton/Connaughton
Gallo/D.J. Wilson
Giannis/B. Lopez
Fill out the roster with undrafted talent or vet min players and you could've had a title contender that would've maximized Giannis's capabilities.
Instead these hedge fund cronies decided to bring in Silver to force the WI state legislature to fork over $300M in public funding and the league made it known that if the arena wasn't built or close to completion by 2017-18, they'd buy the team from Lasry+Edens and sell it to interests in Seattle or Las Vegas resulting in the team being moved. They got bent back over barrel and these weasels couldn't be bothered to give the fan base a team with actual hope.
4) Disaster. Giannis begins to see that the team assembled around him are old aging vets and makes it known that if the team doesn't improve, he'll leave. The Bucks due to their incompetence as mentioned above mortgage their future on Jrue Holiday. He's a good #3, but he's just like Middleton: wildly inconsistent and none of those 2 are good enough to be a real #2 when Giannis needs help. It works as management gets him to sign the 5 year supermax. Holiday stays on too ensuring stability for the next 3-4 years.
Sadly the depth is a problem and they make a bad situation worse by flipping D.J. Augustin and D.J. Wilson to Houston for a past his prime P.J. Tucker. The Bucks gave up a 23 1st, but got their 22 1st back and allow the Rockets to swap their 21 2nd with MIL's 21 1st. The rockets are laughing their butts off over upgrading their pick for a dude who's at the end of the line. Hey the Bucks got under the tax line so win-win.
Giannis's woes at the FT line become comical and downright depressing. His post game or lack thereof is pathetic seeing that it's his 8th year in the league and the fact he doesn't have a consistent 10-15 ft jump shot is worse. Middleton has moments where he looks like a beast and others where he looks like Casper the ghost. Jrue has looked brutal at times and it shows. Lopez can be exploited easily by teams going small and attacking him at the mid range. The rest of the team as constructed is a joke and it makes you wonder how Giannis was able to hide the flaws of this team.
Sadly him getting hurt along with the coach going Bud light in a game where they should've won with no Trae Young out there is pathetic and poetic justice at the same time. A coach who refuses to adjust his game plan when things change and aren't going right is one thing, but to look the way they did is a joke and quite frankly I relish in the fact that this ownership group's scrooge like mannerisms are coming to light as a joke that Giannis has carried for far too long and it has started to crumble.
This was their best shot at a ring and I don't know what you can do going forward as they don't have any picks to work with and trade options on upgrading depth/talent are severely limited. Giannis needs to seriously develop an actual post game and shot if he has any chance of extending his career/realizing his full potential. I wouldn't be surprised if he eventually asked for a trade knowing how poorly this team has been assembled.
If there's any solace for Bucks fans, it's that coach Bud should definitely be canned, but I won't believe it till I see it as this ownership group has effed up over and over again to the point where it's just pathetic to watch. I hope Giannis can bring a ring to Milwaukee and the state of WI, but man I hope he's all right. If anything, I'm not jeopardizing his health and I let him take the rest of the playoffs off in order to save him and his career.
