How The Milwaukee Bucks Ruined Their Franchise in 6 months

How The Milwaukee Bucks Ruined Their Franchise in 6 months

Yeah it’s time to talk about the Milwaukee Bucks last season in an attempt to make a deep postseason run the Milwaukee Bucks Championship hopes were prematurely cut short in the first round as they became the sixth first seated team in NBA history to lose in the first round to an eighth seated

Opponent and because of the upsetting conclusion to the year as well as a Bucs trying to convince Giannis to sign to the team long term Milwaukee clearly needed to make some changes the two most significant ones were firing head coach Mike boser and bringing in rookie head coach Adrien Griffin and trading Drew

Holiday for Damen l now on the surface it was pretty easy for anyone to be optimistic about these changes so much so that not only did jannis sign his contract extension but also many people in the NBA Community including myself thought that a Milwaukee Bucks were a Sure Fire Championship contending team

This season but now fast forward to where we are today and the Bucks are so far removed from those conversations that it’s actually pretty concerning now at a quick glance you may believe that I’m overreacting the Bucks still have a top three seed in the Eastern Conference

A top five offense in the NBA and even though yes defensively there has been noticeable regressions all of that should have been expected when you moved off from Drew holiday and brought in Damen Lillard and even with that slip off defensively they still have a near top 10 net rating however to understand

How bad the Bucks have been this year you got to do a little bit more digging because we are talking about a team that has so many underlying concerns that they decided to fire their newly hhe head coach and brought in Doc Rivers as a replacement since the New Year the

Bucks have a record of 11 and 13 with a negative net rating and offensively they’ve seen the steepest regression but what’s way more impactful is when you watch the Bucks play see how they lose especially to teams that they shouldn’t be losing to like to a Memphis Grizzly

Team that was missing 10 players in their rotation the details that are way more defining of what the ceiling of this team is become much more glaring and I would go as far as to say that the changes that they made in the off season in hopes that it would translate to a

Championship might have actually closed that window effectively for the next 3 to 4 years okay okay let’s go ahead and rip the bandaid off and talk about the elephant in a room and that is Damen Lillard so far this season Dame has been um underwhelming to say it politely and

As of late it’s been pretty hard to deny that he’s been bad like really really really bad and to the people out there who are quietly witnessing what they’re seeing from the future Hall of Famer this season I thoroughly understand your hesitation to be vocally critical Lillard is dealing with off the coure

Issues trying to mess with new teammates and it’s really hard to believe that a player can go from one of the greatest shot creators of all time to a mediocre one within a matter of months however the deeper we get into the season the worse it gets and we’re now at a point

Where this conversation cannot be avoided so how bad has Dame been so far this season well he’s averaging roughly 25 points nearly seven assists four rebounds and a steal which from a sheer production standpoint doesn’t really seem that bad but like I told you in the intro the concerns are really in the

Details and you got to dig a little bit more deeper than just volume numbers because though he is averaging nearly 25 points he’s shooting 42% from the field 34% from behind the arc with a true shooting percentage of 59% and an effective field goal percentage of only

50.6 to put that level of efficiency into his proper perspective added the 22 players in the NBA who are averaging at least 24 points Dame is hovering bottom five in true shooting percentage and has the worst effective field goal percentage amongst these volume scores which is certainly strange because in

The last two full healthy years for Dame he was performing at all-time highs when it comes to his scoring ability and what makes it even harder to believe is that the thing that Dame has excelled in throughout his entire career is what he is struggling with the most so far this

Season and that is his three-point shot outside of 2022 when he was injured Dame is shooting a career low from behind the arc at 34.1% on his pullup three-pointers he’s only converting them at 34% as well which is a 3% difference from what we were seeing from him just last season

And the most noticeable difference is Catch and shoot three-pointers where Dame is only converting them at 32.7% this is not only the worst Mark in Dame’s career but also objectively speaking the player that just won the Three-Point Contest has been one of the worst catch and shoot three-point

Shooters in the NBA and like I told you earlier in the video These numbers continue to get worse so much so that I just cannot ignore them because since New Year’s Dame is only averaging 23 points the assist and rebounds are fairly the same but he’s shooting 40%

From the field 29% from behind the arc 24% on catch and shoot threes and 31% on pullup threes and yes just in case you’re wondering Dame is still egregious bad defensively so when you put all of that in perspective it was literally pointless for the Milwaukee Bucks to

Trade for Dame in the middle of the off season because the whole premise of moving off a Drew holiday for Dame is that even though yes he is a noticeably worse Defender you were willing to live with that because it was going to be such an immense increase in offensive

Production that it would offset what you would lose defensively and more importantly you would still be able to weather the storm because you would still have two Elite level defenders in both Giannis and Brook Lopez while receiving a level of Versatility offensively that now only what Aid

Giannis in his production but also Aid the team in winning a championship but when you’re not seeing that noticeable increase in offensive production while also having to manage the Steep regression defensively it forces you to really ask yourself was trading for Dame even worth it at all and while you

Ponder that I have to ask the NBA Community why exactly is no one talking about this in a community where a lot of people are discrediting great players playing alongside great teammates why is it that no one is harping on the fact that Dame who has received the benefit

Of the doubt for majority of his career is now playing on a much better team and is not only not living up to expectations but is performing at career lows across the board be very mindful that most of the people who are watching this video truly believed less than 12

Months ago that Dame if in a very similar situation could be doing the exact same thing that Curry has been doing for his entire career and here we are now where Dame is finally on a championship team not even the best player on the roster and he is far

Removed from Curry level now please do not mistake aking me I am not trying to overlook all of the variables that could be in play that is giving us this result with Dane but we are way too deep into the season for us to continue to ignore

The fact that part of the reason why the bugs have been underwhelming has to do with Damen Lillard well that as well as really bad coaching because now we have to talk about Adrien Griffin and Doc Rivers okay the coaching situation out in Milwaukee is a massive conundrum and

I really don’t understand how we even got here this is a franchise that is working on a third head coach within a 12-month span and each Co coach that is replacing the last one is providing worse results now you may be asking yourself why would you even fire Mike

Buen hoser or even Adrien Griffin when they both were providing a level of winning that was going to be really hard to replace well very similar to everything else I’ve been saying in this video you got to look deep into the details if you take a step back and look

At Milwaukee Bucks under coach boser they were actually really great on both sides of the floor but the one thing that they had going for themselves and their calling card was defensively they were really really Elite outside of one season they were consistently in the top

10 and the only reason why they slipped out of the top 10 in 2022 is because Brook Lopez had missed majority of the year so it was definitely concerning when this season rolled around and yes the Bucks were still a really good offensive unit under Adrien Griffin but defensively they had slipped

Tremendously now of course many people are going to highlight the fact that this was bound to happen when you replace Drew holiday with Damen Lillard who was a significantly worse Defender and trust me when I say you’re definitely right there’s going to be a slippage in defensive production without

A doubt however I do want to highlight a few more concerns with this team defensively a from a talent standpoint the team has gotten significantly worse defensively over the years losing players such as Grayson Allen and Deon chinzo certainly hurt them and the noticeable regression in both Brook

Lopez and Chris Middleton also is going to make it harder for them to replace that type of production as well but from a coaching standpoint there was still a lot of things that Adrien Griffin could have done to Aid this team and maximize the talent that He had on the roster

Very similar to what we saw from coach coach Boon hoser under coach Bud the bucks thrived off of drop coverage and pick and roll sets allowing Brook Lopez one of the League’s best Rim protectors to not only contain the drive but also disrupt any type of lob threat that was

Present on the opposing team and when done correctly in drop coverage this also allows the initial Defender to fight over screens which not only forces the ball handler off the three-point line but also it presents the opportunity for the initial point of attack Defender normally Drew holiday to

Recover to the ball handler for a contest but under Adrien Griffin the Bucks tend to play the pick and role a bit more aggressively having their big men play at the level which not only takes away a lot of the rim protection but more importantly this tends to

Result in the big men switching on the ball handler and for a team that plays heavy minutes to Brook Lopez and Bobby poris at the five that’s not conducive to their playing style whatsoever under coach boen hoser the Bucks were very strategic on how they decided to send

Help most of the time they opted in not to do so but when they did most of the time their responsibility was given to y as he would roam off of the weakest offensive player on the opposing team giving weak side help at the basket while still having the athleticism to

Close out on his initial assignment under Adrien Griffin the way that the Bucks were sending help honestly it just didn’t make any sense whatsoever the amount of time I’ve seen this team help one pass away off of a quality three-point shooter or have players roam around in areas when there’s already

Backline help it sincerely gave signs of a team that was not properly defensively coached so firing him in the middle of his first season as a head coach may have came across is premature but honestly when you look at what the Bucks were doing it makes a lot of sense and

In terms of moving on from Mike booser in the summer there was definitely some credibility there as well because even though yes defensively this team had been sound throughout his entire tenure there were still a lot of questions and concerns about his lack of adjustments so yes both boen hoser and Griffin may

Have yielded really good results in the regular season but if you look at the details it made a lot of sense for them to go in a different direction because their coaching style was not adaptable enough to postseason play but if that is the case bringing in Doc Rivers as the

Replacement really doesn’t make any sense we are talking about a head coach that has some of the most disappointing playoff runs in NBA history the amount of blown leads the amount of lack of adjustments attention to details this is not only something that can be seen the

Numbers back this up and even players who used to play for Doc Rivers has acknowledged this as well but the thing that really annoys me is the amount of excuses that we hear from Doc Rivers after his team fails which is pretty ironic because JJ reick is exposing him

For this as we speak so yeah I’m not too high on this team being able to turn it around by the end of the year and unfortunately all of the efforts that the Bucs have made to make this team better will inevitably be their demise because after making a coaching change

As well as bringing in Damien Lillard many people believe that the biggest thing that the Bucks were risking was their defense however that’s not true at all the biggest thing that this team was risking was their financial flexibility because Milwaukee is not only actively paying three head coaches at the same

Time but also because of this organization trading for Damen Lillard financially this team is basically handcuffed for the inevitable future as this season the Bucks have committed over $180 million to this team and next year despite the fact that Milwaukee is going to lose pivotal pieces such as

Malik Beasley Patrick Beverly and Jay Crowder the payroll for the bucks actually goes up an extra million and then after 2025 Brook Lopez comes off the books and yet still the Bucks payroll goes up an extra $13 million climbing at $195 million be very mindful that even if they brought back Brook

Lopez just to fill out the roster we are talking about a team that’s going to have a 37y old Lopez a 34 year old Chris Middleton and a 35-year-old Damen Lillard which means that more than likely all of the key contributors outside of Giannis will be regressing in

The upcoming years and while all of this is happening the team has made such a steep Financial commitment commment that they genuinely speaking won’t be able to make any significant improvements unless they move off of some of these key players which is why I stated in the

Intro that the moves that the bucks made over the summer in an attempt to get better actually has put them in a worse situation you can genuinely say that this team would have been in a better situation if they didn’t trade for Dame kept their defensive Integrity with Drew

Holiday while still having Grayson Allen as well as the addition of Malik Beasley on the roster which this season have been some of the best three-point shooters in the NBA and with Chris midleton slowly coming back into his own after dealing with an injury two years ago as well as jannis potentially also

Improving offensively as well the type of improvement that this team was seeking for on the offensive side of the floor could have just naturally happened but instead of waiting and seeing what this team could look like when they’re back fully healthy Milwaukee might have genuinely made mistakes that they won’t

Be able to come back from but hey those are just my thoughts please let me know what you think about the video in the comment section below also if you enjoy videos like these make sure you hit the Subscribe button and notification Bell as well but if you want more daily

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