The positives and negatives from the Bucks Summer League opening loss to the Chicago Bulls

The positives and negatives from the Bucks Summer League opening loss to the Chicago Bulls

today’s lock on bucks is brought to you by FanDuel make every moment more as the playoffs have now wound down the Sports Stop sporting like we want them to wait hold on I don’t think it’s recording now it is my bad I didn’t see the recording button my fault uh all right I can trim out the beginning all right here we go today’s lockdown bucks is brought to you by FanDuel make every moment more as the playoffs have now down the Sports Stop sporting like we want them to but this summer FanDuel is hooking up all customers with a boost or a bonus daily something for everyone every day all summer long visit fanduel.com to get started on Today’s Show game recap returns as the Bucks tip off summer league play a competitive game to open things up with the Chicago Bulls and a couple of bucks players that stood out we get into that conversation coming up next on lock on bucks you are locked on bucks your daily Milwaukee Bucks podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day welcome into locked on bucks I am Justin Garcia joined by Camille Davis and we thank you for making locked on bucks your first listen every day we are free and available wherever you get your podcast you can find us on YouTube YouTube as well all part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day Camille we uh finally have games to get into it’s not the hey who should the Bucks go after and free agency what other moves are on the table for them that’s all settled down and we got our first Glimpse at the two rookies for the bucks as they tipped off summer league Saturday with a loss to the Chicago Bulls um obviously a few guys jumped off the page more than most but coming into this game let’s start with this who were you most anticipating watching in this game Maran uh because he was the the guy coming back he’s entering to his third year in the league here and now he’s coming back for summer league and we talked about it last week of just saying like normally at this point you’ve graduated from Summer League we were giving AJ Green the props of him not being on the team and quote unquote graduating and it was like oh but marjon is still here so I was like I want to see him be the best player on the floor I want to see him look like a guy who shouldn’t be here at this point especially with the conversations that we’ve had around what the Bucks rotations might be and how Maran might find himself into that so I was hoping to see um a lot from Mar like he was the guy I was most focused on uh throughout the first game for sure yeah and that last point I mean it came up a couple of times I think Greg Anthony and Matt Weiner touched on it as well during the broadcast I I know it was in a story we’ll talk about um on our next show where Marjan actually sat down with Eric name and talked with them a bit but um the the whole notion of look you kind of need to be the best guy on the floor I think for the most part he was he was certainly the guy that it’s like if you walked into a pickup game you you look at the guy’s playing you think this guy must probably run the league or This Guy’s in the most games he looks the most seasoned here uh by and large do think he was the best player that was out there for both teams but look it’s it’s one game so I’m not going to blow it up into too much but I I think part of the frustration was yeah overall I think Maran played pretty well but there was not just him either there was a lot of the that looked good that not so much and I think the latter there is year three is it’s not common for players who are first round draft picks to be in their third summer league so I think over overall he met a lot of what you were looking for but I I I left that game looking for just a little bit more and I think that’s fair because the time when he really shined was in the third quarter the third quarter of Maran against the Bulls was like this is what I’ve been looking for here it was during that corner that stretch that he had where I was like now you’re looking like the best guy on the court because early on some of the shot selection was questionable early on in that game and in the third quarter it felt like he came out of halftime and settled down and really just got into some really good spots he scored like 15 of his 22 points at that time in the third quarter it just was like consistent it was a thing that kept the Bucks in the game because the third quarter also happened to be the time when the Bulls started separating from the team but Maran was looking like the best player on the floor during that stretch yeah and Greg Anthony even pointed that out as well of the questionable shot selection at times um but I I thought it was interesting too that it look it seemed like the entire broadcast a lot of their prep work was that story from Eric name because I heard it regurgitated a lot of those lines that were in the story and elsewhere you heard it sprinkled all throughout the broadcast but one of the things that I don’t think we really um saw Maron talk about or address and that was his outside shooting and that was something that Greg Anthony pointed out and said look he’s got all the tools to be an offender so much gassing him up to the level of I think even Bucks fans thought well I don’t know if I saw quite that much defensively from him um but his big thing was I I trust him defensively I think he’s gonna be able to do X Y and Z he’s got to be able to be an outside shooter to stick with this team and he went what two of seven on on threes I think he was okay throughout his first two years shooting the ball from the outside certainly not a knockdown shooter but again when you have Damen Lillard and Chris Middleton AJ Green even other guys I don’t need Maran Bo champ to be a 40% three-point shooter I just can’t have him be Andre Jackson from a year ago yeah yeah and even that and I think what comes with that is Andre Jackson as we talked about his Scouting Report coming into lead it’s like if he wants to shoot go ahead and let him shoot that’s something that Ajax is going to have to prove with just repution and knocking them down and making people come out there and guard them and I think for Maran he had a bit more respect on his shot than what Ajax did but like you mentioned two was seven three-point shooting as a whole for the bucks in the first game against the Bulls just was not a strong suit I think outside of Ryan Rollins like it just wasn’t it wasn’t cooking for many guys there but for Maran yes he’s going to have to make sure that he’s able to stretch the floor and also take the right shots I heard him in his post game after the first game where he was just like you know sometimes I didn’t take the first shot and then that got me into a little bit of trouble where it’s like yeah you had it immediately but then you ended up taking a more difficult shot of right thereafter so it’s about making sure like the shots that you do take when you take them are the right ones uh and he put up seven threes I wouldn’t say all seven were good looks for him but um you like to see them getting them up but you want to make sure that those shots are good shot selections there’s a stretch there in the third too early in the third where there was back-to-back contested deep three-point shots and I I think that’s when we heard even Greg Anthony of I don’t know about that in terms of your shot selection uh look the the best part is we’re not having the conversation of O I don’t know Maran like what did we see here so it’s it’s not there and I think we saw some pretty solid foundation to build upon for him going forward the other thing look you wonder how many games he’s going to play in as he he had that conversation as well with Doc and shared that with Eric name we’ll get into that in a little bit as well but this isn’t just the Maron boow champ episode there was a handful of young guys we were very very curious anxious excited uh you fill in the blank there to see play and obviously one of those the first round pick from this season a couple of weeks ago Aj Johnson so we’ll get into what we saw from one of the two rookies in their semile league debut coming up after the break here unlocked on bucks well it’s time to talk to you about our friends over at FanDuel as we all love sports so much so that we don’t want them to stop but as the playoffs have now wound down we get fewer games and that means the sports aren’t sporting like we want them to FanDuel lets you keep the sports going whenever you want all you have to do is open up the app and dream up bets anytime you’re in the mood most importantly this summer FanDuel is hooking up all customers with a boost or a bonus daily that’s right there’s something for everyone every day all summer long get get in on the action head over to fanduel.com and start making the most out of your summer FanDuel official sports betting partner of Major League Baseball and Camille we mentioned quite a few times um in the off season that this is um this an interesting spot to be in for the bucks where it’s it’s gradually picked up year after year of hey there’s two guys I’m interested in seeing there’s three guys and now what count last week was there’s 10 intriguing guys that you can keep an eye on we did not see all of them uh in this summer league debut Hugo bassan we obviously did not see but we saw the holdovers on the two- ways Tai Tai Washington you mentioned earlier Ryan Rollins you brought up his three-point shooting uh we saw Vin Baker Jr once again and we also saw both of the rookies Tyler Smith coming off the bench and uh Aj Johnson in the starting lineup so I think we’ll start with AJ essentially the point guard of this team and you know when we talked about ups and downs that you saw with Maron I think it was It was obviously much more pronounced with AJ but this to me was pretty much what you were looking for if you’re going into the season with the Assumption of look he’s gonna have to really harness everything and learn and develop in the G League maybe you’ll see him occasionally in garbage time and whatnot but that’s how he’s going to develop what you’re looking for in summer league is okay show me those flashes and while there were moments that were on the opposite end I think we saw a lot of those flashes both offensively and defensively flashes is exactly what I look for from young guys in summer league because we’ve talked about it like the format of it it’s kind of chaotic it it it’s guys who you’ll never be playing with on the main roster Your Role is different all of these different things so it’s like I want to see the flashes and AJ definitely had moments of flash like his first bucket I was like that kid was a blur he just took it from one end to the other end and finished with a really tough finish and I was just like that’s didn’t expect that like you move quick yeah tough finish and it was a grab and go which we heard hey he can do it we’ve seen signs of him doing it and when we had the conversation about Maran of you got to look like the best player on the floor AJ looked like the fastest player on the floor in that instance he got fast down for sure for sure and I saw Frank mention this online as well which I definitely agree with with this for point guards you need to be able to play fast and play slow that de acceleration is just as important as being able to accelerate uh we saw the acceleration from Aj Johnson big time in addition to that we also saw the fact that he was aggressive like he was very aggressive looking for his shots uh the three ball wasn’t falling for him that much but the aggressiveness of it is what I like to see during summer league because again you’re in a roll you’re not not necessarily going to be in but him coming out there and looking like I’m not scared of the moment I’m going to be myself and play my game I’m going to get my shots up I thought that was encouraging as well just to see the fact that he didn’t shrink from the moment yeah look I don’t wanna it’s one Summer League game for a kid that’s really leveling up in competition so I I think it’s fair to point out yeah these are the areas that we we saw that they need to improve but for all those to add those caveats of played against INF Fury I know he was in the NBL but didn’t get a whole lot of playing time and in the growth it’s going to be needed I think what we saw I focused more on the positives with the understanding of look there’s things that you need to see to develop the biggest one is the shooting I thought that for a debut the shot didn’t look great the shooting wasn’t there but the rest of it um his aggressiveness that you pointed to obviously the speed and the quickness that he brings uh but I thought even when we said it was basically your point guard he had a willingness to get other players involved and really start to initiate offense which can be tricky especially going up there um in terms of a level of competition for a kid as young as he is but I thought he looked like a guy where you can see okay I understand why you would take him and especially with this notion of hey the Bucks have to get younger and quicker and more athletic we mentioned that you know take it and go finish that he had just the overall aggressiveness with attacking the basket too look I’m not going to compare summer league guys to what you can expect to see in actual NBA games but that was really one of the bigger things that a lot of us had circled of yeah wasn’t super aggressive in the NBL and even then when he would attack the guys that you’re going up against it’s not going to be the physicality and the size and everything else of what you can expect to see at the NBA level so I know that was an area that I think San Vini and a few others had kind of circled of I can see the tools I’m just not sure about this part so let’s keep an eye on it and at least for one game in summer league I thought it didn’t you know answer all the questions but I liked what I saw in terms of his aggressiveness in getting into the paint and trying to attack the rim I did too and I didn’t know what to expect like we’ve talked about what we think his role might be and like well he projects as somebody who is probably going to be more helpful next year than this year so it’s like not sure what to expect so just getting the first eyes on him and seeing what he can do and how he likes to play uh that in itself was fun just to kind of see like okay let’s see what this rookie that we just got can do um I wouldn’t go as far as like I saw the people on Twitter already saying like maybe horse was really cooking with this one and maybe we owe him apology maybe we should have been shouldn’t have been so quick to judge and again it’s still just one game so that whole mindset of like let’s not judge it too quickly that should go for good and for bad because it’s one game of Summer Le League that we have seen with this uh with AJ Johnson Jun or AJ yeah Johnson so you got to make sure that you keep it even killed and just look like okay what are we seeing what are the flashes uh and what can come of that and in addition to that one thing I thought was interesting was he mentioned in the NBL just the spacing is a little bit more tighter um so he was kind of excited when he was like I can see that I have more space to operate in and this is in the summer league environment where as we mentioned the three-point shooting was necessarily there for the bucks uh so the spacing in itself was more than what he had seen in the NBL so it makes you think of like if he can put things together and get on the court uh during the actual regular season how would that space look for him when he’s sharing the court with some uh guys who command a lot more respect from the defense and I I think the last thing to point out from what we saw uh from AJ was defensively you know there he I thought he was solid that there was no plays that really caught your eye for good or bad right he wasn’t blown by he didn’t seemingly have any blown or missed assignments didn’t have any highlight real defensive plays either but to me the fact that there was you know neither end of the spectrum was was spoken to there is a good thing because it means he was pretty assignment sure he was able to get through screens and stay with his man and it just wasn’t an issue so that I think that’s the other thing of man we we are looking for anything that you can give us in terms of the perimeter defense and this doesn’t just apply to AJ Johnson literally everyone on the roster the perimeter defense the Bucs had a year ago even seen that in in summer league really brought a smile to your face of okay this is what capable perimeter defense looks like especially with the amount of switching that they were doing during that game as well where like guys were just going like perimeter defense as you mentioned Johnson didn’t flash bad or negative which I I thought was a positive coming from him like we have heard that defensive is like his potential is there because of his frame like he’s 64 guard with a decent wing span so it’s like you expect it to be there but seeing it in action was really cool in addition to that um just seeing just the Havoc that some of the guys were able to cause with the switching with Maran with Andre with Chris Livingston and with AJ out there like they were really getting after it and I thought shout out to Ryan Rollins because I thought he also had a really big defensive impact on the game as well when he came in and got some playing time yeah so it’s it’s kind of what we talked about with uh Marjan is you saw good you saw bad I think it was much more of a gap with uh AJ but that was basically to be expected with all the things that we said coming in so I I think for him especially it’s just how do you build upon this for Maran it’s how do we level set and make sure this is and again I don’t want to make it sound like Maran Bo champ was bad in this game but this is the low point you get better game after game after game and with AJ it’s just okay we saw those flashes let’s start to make those flashes occur a little more frequently a few other young guys to uh to touch on and some overall thoughts on the open to summer league for the bucks we’ll get into that conversation coming up next unlocked on bucks passion drive and patience that is the formula for winning championships and it’s also what keeps your ride or die alive eBay Motors has everything you need to maintain your vehicle and level it up to Peak Performance superchargers roof racks exhaust kits LED headlights and more whether you’re into speed power or style eBay Motors has you covered with over 122 million parts for your number one ride or die you’ll always find exactly what you’re looking for and with eBay’s guaranteed fit your part is guaranteed to fit your ride every time or your money back because with eBay Motors you’re burning rubber not cash with all the parts you need at the prices you want it’s easy to make your car the MVP and bring home huge wins keep your ride or die alive at ebaymotors.com eligible items only exclusions apply eBay guaranteed fit only available to us customers and if you are watching Fox Sports or ESPN on your TV all day but constantly have to turn down the volume with all the shouting it means it’s time to make the switch to locked on sports today a free 247 sports streaming Channel program for you every day to bring you the biggest stories without all the screaming locked on sports today brings you can’t miss analysis opinions and news in its dreams 247 on YouTube or the free Amazon Fire TV channels app part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day well a lot of young players to touch on we didn’t even mention another highlight re dunk from Andre Jackson Jr which uh seem to catch Matt weer and Greg Anthony by surprise when it’s something that Bucs fans have seen a handful of times in the last calendar year here for Ajax but uh look my guy Chris Livingston flashes had some flashes there as well right um and we didn’t talk about the other rookie from this year and in Tyler Smith who came off the bench played 20 minutes scored in double figures went two of six on threes got a couple of rebounds as well actually six rebounds um you know I thought he was a guy that didn’t stand out good or bad and that’s probably a good thing for your first professional game here yeah the only thing that stood out to me was that he has a quick shot like he does not hesitate if he feels he has some space he is going to let it go uh seeing him shoot off movement like we mentioned he was two of six from three so they all weren’t falling I feel like he had a few good looks that just didn’t drop for him and then some of the ones that he did make I was like wow like that’s the one like that fell for you so just trying to get used to seeing what he sees of like this is a good shot for me like I am comfortable putting this up really quickly uh that’s what stood out to me the most from Tyler Smith to your point like outside of that wasn’t too much like he caught he got some boards he had a couple hustle plays where it was like okay you love to see that type of energy from him but uh for the most part he came in with a pretty solid 20 minutes of summer league action I would say so like it was just cool seeing a big guy uh not hesitate to shoot he was shooting like a guard yeah yeah and um I we we never really had this conversation but I I think we’re both aligned in that I don’t anticipate either of these two to be I suppose contributors but especially heavy contributors this team right I I think we both think you’ll see him probably a handful of games maybe it’s garbage time maybe it’s something else but don’t pin your hopes I’ve seen some Bucks fans I know not all but I’ve seen some say I don’t know I think maybe part of them not targeting a big is they really think Tyler Smith is going to play I don’t think that’s gonna be the case this year um but of those two who do you think has let’s just say something happens we don’t expect and I tell you one of those two guys ended up playing a decent amount maybe it was by decent I mean about what you got from Andre Jackson Jr last year of those two guys having seen one game of Summer League who do you think would have the best chance to fill that role well I feel like I’m gonna double answer this uh because one pathway of it is looking at the roster and just how many bodies are in front of them so you look at Tyler Smith you’re like okay there’s three guys ahead of him technically uh that you would look at when you’re looking like Bobby Brooke and Giannis but then you might say prince could probably play some small ball four ahead of him you might see Chris playing some small ball four so like it kind of pushes him back a little bit more um so like his pathway already was a little bit more difficult because we’ve seen historically uh at least under Bud the bugs tend to run with three bigs I’m not sure if you know Doc is looking to alter that and have four and if he does he just play a smaller guy to fill that role but for AJ given the fact that he’s was playing point guard at Summer League he’s a combo guard we’ve talked about how the Bucks kind of a little short on guards I could see of the two uh just AJ being the one to get a little bit more time than Tyler Smith although it’s like I could see Tyler Smith having an easier pathway there uh just given what he does and AJ with the speed and everything like that I could see uh AJ getting a little bit more run than Tyler Smith personally if I to pick between the two what about you yeah it’s interesting um I we obviously saw more flashes and again it’s one Summer League game saw more flashes from AJ uh but I think you can’t discount the positional piece and what’s in front of you and and that’s something we’re going to talk about in the next couple of days here too with with Maran Bo champ in everything that has kind of been placed in front of him where it’s it’s not quite as easy as saying man Maran hasn’t really been what you thought he would be so far I think there’s a lot of components to that and part of it is who else is on that depth chart in front of you uh it it leaves the door open for Tyler Smith to have that again I would comp it to Andre and what you saw from him last year where by the end of the season Bucks fans were clamoring for him and saying hey he needs to play more and frankly he should have a season ago um but that’s right in line and probably not quite as much with minutes games played all of it that I I think best case scenario if one of these guys cracks through and earns some playing time that’s probably what you’re looking for if you asked me in a vacuum just watching One Summer League game I would say Aj Johnson if you put the rest of it in front of me and kind of open up the rest of the view I would say okay looking at the roster looking at the age of some guys in front of him as well I think Tyler Smith has the chance I think that’s fair to say like I said with the positional Outlook of it the only thing that made me go like probably not Tyler it’s just I think Doc is going to go with Prince or uh Chris and like you go ahead and be that small ball four that we need if we want to change of pace but Tyler has shown I mean two of six but he’s shown the willingness to shoot if you start seeing him well we wouldn’t see him but if he’s in practice knocking shots down uh I could see doc throwing him out there I’m just like kind of like how AJ Green was where it’s like I know you have an NBA skill set of shooting go out there and do that for a quick moment please and like let’s just see what happens in these minutes but uh for AJ the the guard piece of it because Maran was is considered a guard technically on this roster as well so you’re looking at Dame you have dlon Wright uh we’ve had the conversation about who is that starting two guard for the bucks you know you got Pat conon coming off the bench as well who plays that two3 role for the bucks um I just feel like AJ might be able to sneak in there a little bit if you know the the buckss look in front of the Guard to just come in uh for a little bit use some time up and go from there uh overall takeaways from this this first game of Summer League action your um your one positive that you would take from this and the one thing we need to see Improvement there one positive I’m actually G to go with your guy Chris Livingston give him a little love here I thought that he looked one just physically stronger than a lot of guys that he was out there competing against uh and he just did not look like somebody who was getting sped up his stat line was like necess like not remarkable 11 and eight but it was just like an efficient 4 OR7 from the field he just looked really in control he had that crazy block I forget to end the first or the second quarter or something like that that I was just like that’s impressive um so that was a positive out takeaway the negative would just be the the three-point shooting I love that Ajax was getting them up uh he shot nine threes in that summer league game which again is what you want to see I want to see the volume because again you’re probably not putting up three or nine threes in an NBA game next to the guys on the main roster but seeing them getting them up positive wish we could have seen him knock a few more down yeah and you know I I would say that as well the three-point shooting for the negatives across the board uh I’m sorry he was over for five my bad I was looking at Aj Johnson Ajax was over for five yeah either way not great uh I hesitate to even point out a negative in game one of summer league but um yeah for for me there’s a couple of positives right we talked about uh those flashes from AJ Johnson and uh I would agree with you as well with my guy and the flashes that he showed I think he’s another one we didn’t really talk about roles but just be solid right go out there and be assignment sure defensively that’s really the biggest piece for uh for Chris Livingston to really carve out a place he’s gonna have to improve the offense he’s gonna have to find some type of offensive game but if just as we talked about with AJ Johnson if you just go out there and he look You’ assume there’s more opportunity for some of those highlight reel plays with the block that you referenced and there was a few other plays as well but if I don’t notice you that is a very very good thing especially when we compet to where this Bucks team was defensively a a year ago we will uh we’ll be back with another show to take a look at game two and some of the growth or lack thereof that we saw from game one into game two H for these guys on the summer league roster and uh a little more conversation of Maran Bo champ as well we alluded to that interview he did with Eric name of the athletic and there were some interesting takeaways from uh from that one and what this summer league means for Marjan Bo champ so uh we will open up that conversation on our next show as a reminder as well to get your questions in there I think we may be able to have Frank join us but we’re going to do a mailbag episode to address your questions we’ve already gotten a few emails that have uh come in and a few tweets with your questions as well so we’ll get that email address back out there and address any of the tweets that you had for questions we will get into that a little bit later on the show this week we’re gonna have a post game for Tuesday nights show or Tuesday night’s game as well a nine o’clock tip against I believe it’s the Clippers that they’re playing that night and um and then we have something else pretty fun planned for later in the week uh kind of of a what if Episode if you will taking a look at some of the transactional pieces through the years under John horse so still quite a bit coming up this week as I mentioned we’ll be back once again with the recap from game two of Summer League we’ll talk to you then unlocked on bucks

Its Summer League SZN and Justin and Camille are back with a game recap. Who stood out for good or bad reasons, what flashes did we see from the rookies and what do we hope to see carry through the rest of the week? We get into the Bucks 96-89 loss to the Bulls on the latest Locked on Bucks

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