Are the Giannis era Bucks drawing their final breath?

Are the Giannis era Bucks drawing their final last breath?

Just three years ago, the Milwaukee Bucks had it all. A trio of All Stars, All-Defense contenders, a 6th Man of the Year candidate, a 27-year-old two-time MVP poised to dominate the NBA landscape for the next half decade. They also had, as NBA champions, the Larry O’Brien trophy.

Today’s Bucks have taken one win – coming against a severely undermanned Philadelphia – from five in the new NBA season and sport the second to worst net rating the league with a murders row of a schedule over the next week. They look disjointed. They look frustrated. They look old.  

How the mighty have fallen.

Blind Freddy and his deaf dog were anticipating that the Bucks would, without dramatic changes, start to fade as their core (Giannis Antetokounmpo aside) aged out of their primes, but to fall to this level so quickly is alarming.

The ballyhooed Giannis-Damian Lillard pick and roll devastation has ever really eventuated, despite the pair ranking highly in points-per-possession when Dame comes off a Giannis screen. Lillard has looked far more comfortable dancing with the hulking big Brook Lopez than with Giannis. It’s easy to see why.

Lillard is a point guard who wants to find space to release that incredible jump shot of his. Lopez is a mountain of a man who sets and holds jarring picks. His mid-career change of tack from a low post scorer to a pick-and-pop weapon has undoubtedly extended his useful prime and his style is ideal for Lillard.

Giannis, by contrast, prefers to set softer screens and slip, expecting a pocket pass to spring him downhill where he can leverage his playmaking and finishing ability at the hoop. The best type of player to handle the ball in that scenario is someone who can, of course, make quick reads and slide in those little bounce passes, but is also able to pause the defense with the threat of their midrange game. Lillard’s height makes that the least effective of his weapons.

The Bucks do have a player who is tailor made for Giannis and has undoubted chemistry with him. Unfortunately, he’s played as many NBA minutes in the past six months as I have: Khris Middleton.

That lack of overall offensive cohesion has clearly impacted the Bucks 23rd ranked offense. There is another factor that is causing major issues: their 24th ranked defense, which isn’t able to give the Bucks the chance to break as much as in recent seasons.

For so long Milwaukee’s calling card, the Bucks brass chose to eschew some of their defensive chops the moment they moved Jrue Holiday for Lillard. That’s fine and even defensible, despite the results. However it has left the Bucks without a fallback, something they can lean on when all else fails. An identity, if you will.

 Perhaps Milwaukee hoped for some better injury luck, or for some of their moves on the fringes to work. That’s where this current roster is perhaps most laid bare. The championship Bucks made reclamation projects out of Lopez and Bobby Portis, whilst finding hidden gems in Pat Connaughton and especially Middleton.

By contrast, their major free agency additions over the past few seasons have been, at best, fringe players. Malik Beasley is an ace movement shooter but would struggle to stay in front of me on defense. He’s been replaced by Garry Trent Jr, a slightly better defender but a slightly worse shooter and definitely not the answer. Delon Wight and Taurean Prince have bounced around the league for a reason. Last season it was Patrick Beverley – now out of the league – in addition to Beasley.

What about internal development? Since the new regime took over in 2017, this is their draft record. Bucks General Manager John Horst should be hanging his head in shame at the sight of this list:

2024: AJ Johnson (pick 23), Tyler Smith (33)

2023: Chris Livingston (58)

2022: MarJohn Beauchamp (24)

2020: Jordan Nwora (45)

2018: Donte DiVincenzo (17)

2017 DJ Wilson (17)

DiVincenzo aside, and he was traded for an aging Serge Ibaka, that is a worse result than simply throwing darts at a draft board whilst blindfolded. So, there’s not young help on the way, either.

Where does that leave the Bucks?

Horst and his team have not been afraid to make dramatic, axis shifting moves. Nobody saw the Lillard trade happening (certainly not the Heat!) and they moved a bucket load of picks to obtain Holiday in the first place. Those moves, though, were made to appease their Greek God. Given Antetokounmpo signed contract extensions shortly after each trade, it’s difficult to say anything other than ‘job done’. The problem now is that the Bucks have nothing left to trade, bar the family silver.

The core four are untouchable, assuming the Bucks want to stay in contention. An unexpected fleecing aside, neither Portis nor Connaughton would bring back anything if real value.

It seems the Bucks are stuck. Their current roster doesn’t have anybody worth trading (Giannis aside) and their pick cupboard is practically bare. They do not control their own pick until 2031. Though they will have first rounders in 2026, 2028 and 2030, each of those picks are controlled by others under swap rights deals.

So, what is the Bucks move, assuming things don’t improve on the court?

That likely depends on Doc Rivers. The veteran coach is a masterful politician and has apparently ingratiated himself to Bucks ownership to the point where he is now the most powerful voice in the room.

Does Rivers, let’s say 30 games into the campaign, decide that this roster isn’t going anywhere and suggest it should be torn down to the studs? Is a rebuild in the cards?

At 63 years of age, with two decades of coaching in his rearview, it’s unlikely Doc has the patience for the type of rebuild that Milwaukee would be undertaking, even with the plethora of picks that their veteran core would likely command on the trade market. We’ve already seen him avoid a rebuild once, abandoning ship when his championship Celtics sold off their veterans.

Could Doc pull a power play and look to oust Horst and his team from the front office. Think about it: a treasure chest of picks and a scorched earth roster means that Doc gets practically full creative control over the rebuild. It will certainly take time, which buys him some job security. And all with the added bonus of not having to endure the day-to-day grind that is NBA head coaching. That’s a win-win-win for Doc!

Don’t get me wrong, it would take a dramatic shift in the thinking of the entire ball club to go down the rebuilding route. Middleton’s #22 will hang in the rafters someday and Giannis is, given Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s relative short tenure with the club, the most important player in franchise history. Does ownership have the balls to sanction moves such as those? How will the fanbase react to losing their best team in, for most Bucks fans, living memory?

It’s that juxtaposition that makes the next few months in Milwaukee basketball so fascinating. This Bucks roster was supposed to push them back towards the NBA summit. They could well do it, either through their play on the court, or the draft picks they could generate. The Bucks, right now, are losing and losing big. Don’t be surprised if everything starts coming up Doc before the season is out.