Tag Archives: Miami Heat

Eastern Conference playoffs preview . . . Nursing an unspecified injury and up in the air . . . Heat vs. Sixers . . . Bucks vs. Celtics . . . May 17, 1987

The NBA playoffs began this afternoon with the Spurs in Oakland against the defending champs with the Wizards vs. Raptors, Heat vs. 76ers and Pelicans vs. Trailblazers series’ also set to open today. Let’s get right into it then and take a look at the Eastern Conference match-ups, with a little help from the full season 2017-18 BIER ratings for the eight East playoff teams, which J.D. Mo finally finished Saturday morning. (Dig into the basics of BIER HERE.)

Miami Heat vs. Philadelphia 76ers – “Whiteside is nursing an unspecified injury and his status against the Sixers for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference first round is up in the air.”

So says the Miami Heat’s injury note on center Hassan Whiteside, who’s been warring again with Heat coach Erik Spoelstra over playing time. (Think Greg Monroe and Jason Kidd, only on the more less* unprofessional side, with Udonis Haslem in the mix to smooth things over in the role assistant coach Greg Foster played with the Bucks). With the 6th-seeded Heat in Philly getting ready to take on the Sixers in their series opener, the note speaks volumes for the character of the Miami Heat organization and its GM, Pat Riley.  *please see note below

“Nursing unspecified injury status up in the air” spells “may or may not play depending on whether coach Spoelstra feels like using him in a game where we know we won’t be playing against Joel Embiid.” Enjoy the game, Hassan, we’ll give you a nice courtside seat, call you if we need you (and we’ll have fun with the injury report whether you like it or not). — Insert thoughts on how this contrasts with how the Milwaukee Bucks organization handles things these days —  There’s no room for players questioning the dictates of the coach in Miami, nor any doubt about who’s in charge.

2017-18 BIER leaders on Eastern Conference playoff teams only. * Irving’s season is finished due to knee trouble, but I decided to leave him in the chart to show how much production impact the Celtics are missing in his absence.

The crazy thing about the injury note, other than the really amusing deadpan absurdities of it, is that the Heat are so fully prepared to play without Whiteside. When he does play, there’s no higher impact big man, no more dominant player in the East, as the BIER chart at right shows. The Heat just don’t care about the numbers.

The Heat went through a lot of trouble on the last night of the regular season to set up the Philly series, winning in overtime in Miami against the Raptors. It was a game they would have and should have lost had 3-point gun Wayne Ellington not caught fire in the 4th quarter. Ellington drained 6 out of 7 threes for 18 points in the 4th to force the overtime, then put the game out of reach with an old-fashioned layup with 1:53 to play to put the Heat up by six as Spoelstra stuck with his 2nd unit players in the overtime. If not for Ellington, the Sixers would be playing the Bucks this evening and the Heat preparing for the Celtics in Boston tomorrow.

Which is another funny thing about the Heat. Spoelstra’s bench crew — Ellington and Kelly Olynyk (Whiteside’s backup at center), along with forwards Justise Winslow and rookie big man Bam Adebayo — are the guys responsible for the Philadelphia series. Not Whiteside or Dwyane Wade or All-Star point guard Goran Dragic. Forwards Josh Richardson and James Johnson were the only Heat starters to see any action in the overtime.

And that’s just fine for the Heat, who are expected to trade Whiteside in the offseason. D-Wade is expected to retire, enjoy the ride. This isn’t their year, the Heat know it, no reason to worry about who their first round opponent was going to be. I doubt they make it back to Miami for a Game 6.

Sixers center Embiid, mending a quite specified fractured orbital bone around his left eye, is not expected to play in the opener Saturday and may not play at all against the Heat, depending on how competitive the series is. The Sixers streaked into the playoffs on a 16-game winning binge that started with Embiid in the lineup and has rolled on since he was cracked in the face against the Knicks March 28.

The Heat aren’t likely to be able to produce enough offense to keep up with the Sixers, while Philly’s defense is rated 4th best in the league. The Heat play good defense, too, and are rated 7th (106.3 pts/100) but it shouldn’t matter, especially if Spoelstra’s not going to rely on Whiteside to anchor the D.

Bucks vs. Sixers in the second round while Cleveland and Toronto face off in the other East semifinal?  It seems a likely outcome and the best of all worlds for Milwaukee and Philly, who won’t see Lebron James and Kevin Love or the 59-win Raptors until the East Finals. But first the Bucks must get past the Kyrie-less Boston Celtics, who can’t be too pleased that the Bucks so obviously tanked their final game in Philly in hopes of dropping down from 6th into 7th to play them.

Bucks vs. Celtics

No Kyrie Irving means a good matchup for Bucks point guards Eric Bledsoe and Malcolm Brogdon against Terry Rozier, who’s played well in Irving’s absence. Celtics middle linebacker Marcus Smart is still out nursing a torn tendon in his thumb, so the Celtics are woefully thin at point. A nice edge for the Bucks.

Greg Monroe leads the Celtics scoring off the bench. License: Standard non-commercial use.

Bucks big men John Henson, Thon Maker and Tyler Zeller will be disassembled by Aron Baynes and Greg “Moose” Monroe, who saw a lot of action off of Boston’s bench down the stretch. They will be reassembled after the playoffs as the Bucks organization puzzles what to do with them. For development purposes, I hope Thon plays a lot in this series, even though Monroe knows Thon’s every weakness and bad habit, having played a full season and two training camps with him in Milwaukee.

With the further development of young forwards Jaylen Brown (left) and Jayson Tatum as top priority for the Celtics goal in the Bucks series, they’re playing with house money in Boston. Photo: Boston Globe. License: Standard non-commercial use.

Khris Middleton and Tony Snell will have their hands full with the young Jays on the wings, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Middleton has had a decent, generally efficient scoring season (3-pt shoting % was down this year) while posting career highs in rebounds and assists. Khris got better in 2017-18 and posted a 7.65 BIER/36, a nice improvement over his career BIER of 4.96 (which isn’t all that great for a forward). The difficulty here is that 20-year-old Tatum posted a 7.50 BIER/36 in his rookie season and Brown, in his second season, bested Khris’ career mark. (Edited from original – much like the Bucks, I got the two Jays mixed up on the wings).

What this means in the world of BIER is that both the Jays are already better all-around impact players than Khris has been for most of his career; and that Middleton’s career-best season at age 26 was business as usual for Tatum at age 21 in his rookie year. This should trouble Bucks fans and front office people alike — and what happens in the wing match-ups in this series should prove instructional for anyone taking notes. It’s a good “see how we are”*¹ test for all involved, while in Boston they’re viewing the entire series as a “Jaylen and Jayson show” development exercise.

Coaching and discipline  could well define the match-ups on the wings. Tatum and Brown play in the NBA’s No. 1-rated defense and Brad Stevens has everybody’s attention in Boston. This can’t be said of Bucks interim coach Joe Prunty, as the Bucks showed an undisciplined streak as the season wound down — the ridiculous 46 points they gave up in the first quarter in Philly; the final two minutes of the loss in Denver; an unexpected loss at home to Brooklyn — the list since the All-Star break could go on. The Bucks defense (rated 19th in the NBA at 110.1 pts/100 poss.) is good in spots, but not for entire games. It’s not better to be lucky than good, but if the Bucks had played with greater poise and discipline, they’d probably be playing Cleveland in the first round.

Giannis vs. Al Horford – Other than Lebron James, who isn’t always 100% dialed in on defense, Al Horford is the toughest head-to-head match-up in the East side of the playoffs for the Giannis Antetokounmpo. Horford is the model of consistency at power forward and shoots 43% from three, but it’s his defense that will make Giannis work. Horford’s a very solid fundamental defender, knows all the veteran tricks, dirty and otherwise, and has been getting All-Star treatment by NBA referees for nearly a decade now. A good, tough test for Giannis, who loves a challenge. He’s the No. 2 rated BIER player in the Eastern Conference, behind only Lebron (J.D. Mo hasn’t crunched the full season numbers for the West yet, but he’s pretty sure Anthony Davis finished with the league’s top BIER number).

The benches: The Bucks bench got a boost in the final week of the season with the return of Malcolm Brogdon and Matthew Dellavedova to complement Jabari Parker, Brandon Jennings, Zeller, Sterling Brown, Maker and Jason Terry. The Maker-Zeller combo will have their hands full with the Moose but this is a good Bucks bench group. The Celtics are just too shorthanded with Smart not available until April 27. Monroe will produce in the middle and create offense around him (the Celtics like to run cutters and hand-off plays off of Monroe in the high post to take advantage of Monroe’s passing game). There may be no center in the East who’s as good with the ball as Monroe is. But there’s nobody to stop Parker other than Semi Ojeleye, another Celtics rookie, who’s somewhat of a liability at this point. Look for Parker to break out a great game or three in the series.

Prediction: #BucksIn6

May 17, 1987

The last time the Bucks and Celtics met in the playoffs was Game 7 of the 1987 Eastern Semifinals. The series has been dubbed “the forgotten” series because the East Finals the Celtics would play after surviving the Bucks has loomed large in both Legend of Larry Bird and Bad Boys Pistons lore (“Bird steals the ball!! – D.J. lays it in!!!!”). The 1988 Celtics-Hawks Eastern Conference semifinals series has loomed larger, too, partly because it was the pinnacle of Dominique Wilkins career, and partly because Bird’s exploits were, again, legendary. Now that I think about it, I’m not exactly sure why that Hawks team gets talked about more than the Bucks, who played in three Eastern Conference Finals in the 1980s. The Hawks never made it out of the semifinal rounds.

There’s a lot of online content about “the forgotten series” now but for my money (it’s actually free) head for the Sports Illustrated vaults and dig into SI’s feature on Game 7, published May 25, 1987 and posted HERE.

The full CBS Broadcast of the game with Dick Stockton and Billy Cunningham is up on youtube at Karol K’s NBA channel. Nobody knew these teams, these players better than Billy C, who coached the Sixers (1979-1985) during the great 3-headed Celtics-Sixers-Bucks Eastern Conference rivalry in the 1980s.

The referees are Ed Rush and Hugh Evans. Final score: Celtics 119, Bucks 113.

*¹ “See How We Are” is a great song by the band X, written by John Doe and Exene Cervenka. It’s not about basketball.

*Ed. note: this was a typo – Monroe didn’t vent in the media like Whiteside did. The Moose very publicly during a game early in the 2017 season, when Moose was playing less than John Henson and losing minutes to Thon Maker, got into a heated hollering match with Foster; the maintained a solid, mutually respectful working relationship. The first thing Monroe did after learning last fall he was traded to the Suns was walk over to Foster and shake his hand. Foster will not likely be coaching the Bucks next season, but he deserves credit, as Bucks big man coach, for getting the most out of a very limited John Henson, who’s had his best pro season this year) 

Sourcerole

  • Raptors vs. Heat official scorers’ report, final game of the regular season, 04/11/18 – http://www.nba.com/data/html/nbacom/2017/gameinfo/20180411/0021701221_Book.pdf

Things to do in Washington D.C. when you need the Celtics to beat the Wizards . . . Updated Bucks playoff scenarios

The Bucks dispensed with the Orlando Magic 102-86 last night and the Heat fell to the Thunder in Miami, setting up the next stage in the Bucks playoff seed watch: the Celtics-Wizards game in Washington D.C. tonight.

Lose at home to the Kryie-less Celtics and the Wizards will be relegated to 8th and a first round playoff match-up against Toronto. The Bucks would then have the luxury of deciding whether to go all out against the Sixers on Wednesday in a bid for the 6th seed, or bow out in Philly and take the 7th seed and a Round 1 series against Boston.

The 6th seed opponent would almost surely be the Cavs, who close their season against the injury-depleted Knicks in Cleveland after beating the Knicks 123-109 in N.Y. Monday to stay a half game behind Philly. The Sixers have won 14 straight games, and will look to extend their streak to 15 tonight in Atlanta. A loss to the Hawks — or to the Bucks in the season finale — would flip the Cavs and Sixers in the final standings. (OK, anything is possible in the Knicks-Cavs game Wednesday, but really? Lebron and Kevin Love racked up 54 pts, 11 rebs and 12 asts against the Knicks Monday, and the Cavs are all but fully healthy and resting no one in this final week).

Luxuries are nice; the odds against beating Lebron and the Cavs in a first round playoff series are not so nice. All eyes in Bucks-land turn east to Washington, where the Celtics-Wizards are set to tip off at 7pm CST on TNT. A Wizards win means all remains in flux for the bottom three East seeds going in to Wednesday’s regular season-closing games.

The Wizards – have lost eight of their last 10 and four straight since John Wall came back March 31 from knee surgery. They’re murmuring about a sudden lack of chemistry in D.C., but had lost four of the six prior to Wall coming back and haven’t won since Boston announced that Kyrie Irving was done for the season. Truth is, the Wizards schedule was like a Rob Zombie Films gauntlet of terror — the Wiz didn’t catch a game against a lottery bound team for a month (Feb. 24 – March 24).

I’d say the Wizards are more burnt out than anything else, and occasionally suffering post traumatic stress from their schedule. Now that Wall’s back, nobody’s ailing except backup center Ian Mahinmi, who suffered a concussion in Cleveland and missed the Wizards’ loss to Atlanta Friday. They haven’t played a game since then, a well-timed and badly needed break before the battle against Boston.

Greg “Moose” Monroe has been getting a lot of work off Boston’s bench down the stretch, and posted a triple-double against the Bulls on Friday. Photo by Brad Mills, USA Today Sports. License: Standard non-commercial use.

The Celtics – Word out of the Celtics camp (and the Boston Globe) is that they’re not going to cooperate by resting Al Horford or anybody else not injured — and they don’t need the rest. Their young Jays, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, and Terry Rozier, Jabari Bird and Semi Ojeleye will sup on the playoff-like atmosphere of the game, though all the pressure’s on the Wizards. And Greg Monroe just likes getting the work with his new team. The C’s have been running plenty of sets for Monroe in recent games, and he’s averaged 17.7 pts, 7 rebs and 5.7 asts in 24.4 mins per game in his last three. 

The Moose’s BIER rating was good in Phoenix (13.51) but in Boston it’s up to 15.06 — an all-star level per36 for a center. Of course Monroe has played just 19 mins per game since joining the Celtics in February, but that’s still a ton of production to throw at opponents off the bench (Aron Baynes starts at center for the Celtics while Al Horford’s has shifted to his natural role as stretch power forward).

Moose put up a triple double vs. Chicago last Friday, as he and Bird (of course the Celtics took the only guy named Bird in the draft last summer) dropped 34 pts on the Bulls off the bench in the Celtics win.  “When he gets the minutes, he’s often going to get a double double (points and rebounds),” C’s coach Brad Stevens said of Monroe. “He’s an underrated passer.”

Yep. Bucks fans knew all that, though it didn’t stop former Bucks coach Jason Kidd from undervaluing Monroe. Kidd was never going to make the most of Moose and his skills, which is why trading Moose for Eric Bledsoe has worked: 32 mins of Bledsoe usually beats 20 mins of Monroe (in the world of BIER, anyway), though not at the production level Monroe’s been contributing in Boston.  If it seems the Bucks are no better than they were last season — and probably worse considering they won 20 of their last 30 on their run to the playoffs — remember that Kidd was playing Monroe 25 mins or more during that stretch, and that this season they’ve been without Malcolm Brogdon since early February.

Way to end on a bum note, dude.

Sorry man, I couldn’t help it — thinking about the Bucks and their politics this season just has that sort of effect.

Celtics-Wizards tips off at 7:05 CST tonight on TNT. 

Spoiler Hawks – In the course of writing this, I noticed that the most recent games for both the Celtics and the Wizards were against the Hawks, and that the Hawks played spoiler and beat them both. Just an odd factoid, perhaps. The Hawks opponent tonight in Atlanta happens to be Philly. Can the Hawks make it a hat trick? And would it change anything for the Bucks? . . .  nope.

Things to do in Milwaukee when you might not have to play Toronto in Round 1 . . . Meanwhile in Miami: Heat vs. Thunder tonight kicks off 3 days of NBA madness

The Bucks hopes of finishing anywhere but 8th, it turned out, didn’t die last week in Denver, and neither did Denver’s hopes after the Bucks gave them new life (the Nuggets beat the T-Wolves and the Clippers last week to all but eliminate the Clippers and give themselves a shot at 8th in the West). The Bucks and Heat are tied with 43-37 records, the Heat holding the tie-breaker and 6th seed in the East. Both teams are in action tonight: The Bucks face Orlando in Milwaukee while the Heat host the Thunder in Miami. The Wizards are 8th at 42-38 after losing to the spoiler Atlanta Hawks Sunday. In the East, 8th means a Toronto series and is to be avoided.

The turning point in the Bucks outlook had nothing to do with the Bucks or their temporary coaching staff, and everything to do with Kyrie Irving‘s infected left knee and the news that his inaugural season in Boston was over.

Chances are, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson is a better all-around player than the small forward on your favorite NBA team. RHJ played 37 mins in the Nets 119-111 win over the Bucks in Milwaukee 04/05, grabbing 11 rebs to go with 14 pts and 5 assists. NY Post photo. License: Standard non-commercial use.

With the injury news April 5, the Heat and the Wizards joined the 7th seed sweepstakes to play Kyrie-less Boston, locked in at No. 2 in the East. Both teams dumped games to lottery teams while the Bucks were doing the same in Milwaukee Thursday under a barrage of Brooklyn 3-pointers (19 makes, 19 misses by the Nets). Then the Wizards lost to the Hawks, and not on purpose. John Wall‘s back from knee surgery but his teammates had grown accustomed to playing without him. A Kobe-style drama may be playing out in D.C., with the immediate beneficiaries the Bucks and their playoff seeding.

In this race in the bottom rungs of the Eastern Conference playoff ladder, if you run too fast you could end up playing Lebron and the Cavs in the Round 1 — and nobody wants that with the possible exception of Giannis Antetokounmpo who would consider it an honor, a challenge, a learning experience and a chance to pull off an incredible upset. The rest of the Bucks? Let’s just say Giannis would be resting his knees and ankles and watching Toronto Raptors games had his teammates not had some fun winning in New York Saturday. He is expected to play tonight against Orlando. (Not anymore – Giannis was a game time scratch).

So now the trick is to somehow wedge into 7th between Washington and Miami while avoiding the mistake of winning too much and becoming Round 1 fodder for Lebron and NBA refs. It’s better off said — the last thing the NBA wants is Lebron out of the playoffs after only a few games. If the Bucks were good enough to upset the Cavs (which they’re not), the refs would be sure to make said task so supremely difficult that only someone like Giannis could possibly succeed without help from one of the Avengers (preferably not “arrow guy” Clint, who’s No. 1 on the “will probably die in the next movie” list).

First up, the Bucks host the Orlando Magic tonight in the last regular season Bucks game that will ever be played at the BMO Harris Bradley Center, a building that saw a lot of losing by the Bucks over the years and only two playoff series wins, yet houses two generations of nostalgia for those who came to know, love and routinely regret their uncharted fates as fans of the Milwaukee Bucks. We waited years for the criminal investigation into the crooked refereeing in Game 4 vs. the Sixers 2001, to no avail. All we got is Jim Rome yelling about it on TV, a Ray Allen trade only George Karl loved, and a bunch of fledgling bloggers invested in Michael Redd for no reason they could explain. It was weird, weirder even than the drama of this season — and that’s only the stuff that happened after the internet. The 1990s were often weirder but usually a lot more fun despite the Bucks needing the entire decade to build a winner in the BC, where once upon a time everyone knew how to stay on beat for the DEFENSE chant. Who let the dogs out, indeed!

What’s killing Bucks fandom now is the idea that the Bucks are supposed to win. It’s a pretty dumb idea, looking up and down the roster and the payroll. But there it is, this idea that the Bucks time has arrived with Giannis. Now that time is here, the fans tip-tap their smart phones and wonder when. 

Bucks need a win tonight – Can the Bucks beat the 24-win Magic in this final Bradley Center game? The last time the Bucks played Orlando, Jonathon Simmons and D.J. Augustin rained 13-21 threes on the Bucks and the Magic held off the Bucks in the 4th to win 126-117 (funny, same thing the Nets did to the Bucks on Thursday). Simmons isn’t likely to play tonight due to a “right wrist contusion”, the Bucks are at home and the Magic closer to wrapping it up with a primo lottery pick. The Magic won’t be as tough as Brooklyn, and Malcolm Brogdon is expected to play (not sure if this sarcasm or not).

But who am I kidding? The Bucks will beat Orlando tonight because most folks around the NBA have little more than a vague awareness the game is being played at all, and — more importantly — because a win by the Bucks could quite possibly create a dilemma for the Bucks in Philly on Wednesday in the season finale. Dilemma, conundrum, Hobson’s choice — to win or not to win — a fitting way for the Bucks to end this rather Shakespearean season of theirs.

Dispense with the Magic, beat the Sixers and the Bucks could quite possibly find themselves in 6th. Unfortunately for the Bucks, handing the Sixers a loss will almost surely vault the Cavs into 3rd, which means the Bucks would head to Cleveland over the weekend to begin the playoffs. The Cavs finish their schedule with back-to-back games against the Knicks, who, as the Bucks found on Saturday, don’t have a lot to work with right now other than Michael Beasley (half the roster’s on the injury report). The Sixers are on a 14-game winning streak which should run to 15 games in Atlanta Tuesday, barring another spoiler win by the Hawks.

Meanwhile in Miami – The Heat tonight host a desperate OKC team that still hasn’t clinched a playoff birth in the West. Russell Westbrook cast as desperado in Miami, rocketing all over the court, raging at every injustice seen and unseen, demanding sublime efforts from Paul George and Carmelo Anthony to nail down the playoff berth. This will be great TV tonight, and there’s more ahead Tuesday and Wednesday in the West match-ups. Pity the Heat, who could be looking to avoid the 8th seed on Wednesday against 1st place Toronto. I don’t see how the Heat win the OKC game, with Hassan Whiteside and Erik Spoelstra warring again last week over Whiteside’s playing time and the wags talking off-season trade (attention: Jon Horst). OKC plays center Steven Adams full-time minutes, so Whiteside should get his PT tonight.

While the Thunder have yet to clinch a playoff spot, the Pacers, who traded Paul George for Domantas Sabonis and Victor Oladipo in the offseason, locked up the #5 seed over the weekend. Addition by subtraction and teamwork, a breakout year for Oladipo, and a few smart moves by the GM; “trust the process” in Philly — the Pacers and Sixers are where the Bucks thought they’d be this season.

Meanwhile in Washington The Wizards host those shorthanded Celtics on Tuesday. There’s a lot of silver in the clouds for the Celtics, no matter what happens in the playoffs. The Celtics have nothing to play for in D.C., except to run offense for recent acquisition Greg Monroe — 17.7 pts, 7 rebs, 5.7 asts avg. for Monroe in his last three games, and a triple-double against the Bulls on Friday) — and build experience for their young forwards, 19-year-old rookie Jayson Tatum and 21-year-old Jaylen Brown. A Bucks win over the Magic coupled with a loss to the Celtics Tuesday would lock the Wizards in 8th.

A Wizards win against the Celtics would mean the Wizards would have to lose in Orlando or the Heat would have to lose both of their remaining games for the Bucks to end up 7th. (Assuming the Bucks beat the Magic tonight.) Don’t ask me if Toronto will be resting players and taking the night off in Miami Wednesday.

And don’t ask whether the Bucks can beat the Sixers in Philly. Let’s see if the Bucks can take Orlando first.

Bucks Weekend: Khris Middleton led the Bucks on the boards in Orlando, and it almost made up for Miami

Middleton rebounds against the Hornets last season. AP photo. License: Standard non-commercial use.

It doesn’t happen very often, and when it does it’s worthy of note. Khris Middleton led the Bucks in rebounding in their 111-104 win over Orlando Saturday, their sixth straight win on the second night of back-to-back games (they lost 91-85 in D-Wade’s “return to Miami” game on Friday.)*¹

Middleton had 9 boards in Orlando, all of them on the defensive end, a couple of them big in the 4th quarter. He also made a lot of other plays, like the beautiful half-fast break he ran to set up Jason Terry for a three as the Bucks edged ahead in the 3rd quarter. Khris had 7 assists on the night to go with the 9 rebounds and 21 points. It was only the 8th time in 325 games as a Buck that Middleton alone has led the team in rebounding.

And it was quite a difference from the night before in Miami, when nobody on the Bucks side had a good game, including coach Joe Prunty, whose rotations had Giannis Antetokounmpo on the bench for 4 minutes when Heat center Hassan Whiteside picked up his 4th foul in the 3rd Quarter.*² You can get away with mismanaging your star player’s minutes against Brooklyn, but Miami took advantage. Jabari Parker played tentatively and appeared to bothered by the aggressive energy of the game. Giannis thrives under those conditions, as does Eric Bledsoe, and they led the Bucks back in the 4th but ran out of game clock. They had finally become ticked off enough about what was going on to take over.

Middleton shot 5 for 14 and had one lonely rebound as the Bucks got worked by the Heat on the glass, 51-37, a glaring example of when rebounding beats better shooting. The Bucks checked the Heat to 42% EFG%.

The concern of many who follow the Bucks is that, right now, they look like one of those mediocre 46- or 47-win teams, great at padding their stats when beating up on the bad teams, but continually falling short against the good teams. Since Jan. 1, the Bucks record against teams currently in playoff spots is 3-and-9, and Prunty is 0-and-2. (No, I’m not counting the victory over the Embiid-less Sixers as a win against a playoff team). Miami beat the Bucks three times in that period, which is why Friday’s game mattered — it was the Bucks last chance during the regular season to take a game from the Heat.

Chalk it up to the evil genius of coach Erik Spoelstra and the dominating, intimidating presence of Whiteside, who averaged 18 pts, 13.3 rebs and 3.67 blocked shots vs. the Bucks. In the wake of Whiteside’s eight offensive rebounds in game 3, Bucks center John Henson missed the Orlando game and will probably be out of action until after the All-Star break, nursing a bum hamstring and what’s left of his pride. (Bucks have until March 1 to sign some free agent big man help).

Are the Bucks a good team, or are they Giannis Antetokounmpo and a bunch of future trades who helped get their coach fired last month? I guess we’ll find out over the next two-and-a-half months.

Middleton leading the Bucks in rebounding in Orlando was a lot more interesting when I didn’t realize he had but one lonely defensive rebound in Miami. Five or six defensive rebounds a game by the small forward used to be business as usual around here (Luc Mbah a Moute, Glenn Robinson et al., going all the way back to Marques Johnson and Bobby Dandridge). The idea is to get 5 or 6 D-rebs every game and hit the offensive glass for one or two possession-saving rebounds. The latter has happened less and less for the Bucks this season. Friday in Miami, they had all of two offensive rebounds in the game. Two. The Heat had 13.

The Bucks D-rebounding has improved this season, up to 17th in the NBA from 25th last season. But if not for Dallas, the Bucks would be dead last in offensive rebounding in the league, with an OREB% of 19.2 (Dallas is at 17.9). Cleveland is 28th at 19.3%, a function of Kevin Love playing center, Tristan Thompson‘s playing time being cut, Love breaking his hand and Lebron James either playing on the perimeter or simply electing to not rebound. Lebron has always been a disinterested rebounder, in contrast to Kevin Durant or Giannis, who lead their teams on the boards.

Michael Beasley, currently leading the Knicks in scoring off the bench, has been missed. NY Times photo. License: Standard non-commercial use.

The Bucks have similar personnel issues — they traded their best rebounder, Greg Monroe, were unable to resign Michael Beasley over the summer and Jabari Parker missed the first 50 games rehabbing from knee surgery. Beasley and Parker are small forwards in the classic sense — natural scorers with sweet shooting touch and instinctual drives for the ball on offense. They’ll hit the offensive glass even as the coaches are yelling at them to get back on defense, defense being something that neither is good at, but neither was the Big Dog or any number of good and great small forwards in NBA history. Dr. J didn’t care much about D until he realized he might never win a title if he didn’t pick it up, which he did.

Middleton’s no shutdown defender either, and he’s played most of his career with better rebounders — Giannis, Greg Monroe, Parker — so, like Lebron, he’s content to stay on the perimeter and take what rebounds come his way. To be fair (and the editorial board here at Bob Boozer Jinx does insist on fairness), part of it is a matter of coaching, and part the changing NBA game. Offensive rebounding is at an all-time low in the league at 22.3%. Small forwards don’t crash for rebounds like they used to, especially if they’re setting up at the 3-point line much of the game; and coaches often demand that they “get back” to defend against the fast break.

Yet neither changes in the game nor coaching mores have prevented the OKC Thunder from leading the NBA in OREB% by a mile at 28.1% while also rating 5th in defense. Russell Westbrook simply wants the rebounds more than his opponents do. His center, Steven Adams, is having a great year, emerging as one of the Top 5 impact centers in the league and leading the NBA in individual OREB% at 17.3%. Henson’s actually 18th in the league (9.5%) which isn’t so bad for J-Hook. It’s almost stunning to think that over the course of 100 missed shots on offense, OKC’s Adams will get to eight more rebounds than Henson, and six more than Dwight Howard or LaMarcus Aldridge. Westbrook and Adams are clearly reading from the same page in OKC.

Unlike Henson, who’s doing all he can, truly, and deserves at least some merit for having his best season as a pro, Middleton can hunt rebounds whenever he wants to, or when called upon to do so. The nine rebounds he pulled down in Orlando were well short of his career high of 14, set last month in Philly, and was the 3rd time this season Middleton has led the Bucks in rebounding. The Orlando game was the first time this season Middleton led the Bucks on the boards in a game where Giannis played. Here’s a look at the other two.

  • 01/20/18 vs. the Sixers in Philly. A dreadful loss as the Bucks played without Antetokounmpo, who stayed in Milwaukee to rest recurring soreness in his right knee — also the last Bucks game coached by Jason Kidd. Middleton posted the first triple double of his career AND his career high in rebounds — 14 — to go with 23 points and 10 assists. (There’s an irony in there, to Middleton’s first triple double being Kidd’s last game, if only because there isn’t another word to aptly describe it. Giannis not playing in the game might qualify it as one of those rare double ironies.) The Sixers blew the Bucks out, 116-94. The Bucks fired Kidd two days later. Here are Middleton’s ironic highlights.

  • 11/22/2017, Bucks vs. the Suns in Phoenix  Giannis sat out to rest his knee and Middleton dropped 40 points on the Suns and led the Bucks with 9 rebs. The Bucks won this sloppy, turnover-riddled game in overtime, 113-107.

Giannis has missed four games so far this season, all due to soreness in his right knee, a problem that cropped up over the summer and forced him to drop out of international play with Team Greece. The Bucks split those four games (they lost in Charlotte 12/23/17 and beat the Suns in Milwaukee Jan. 22). Middleton put up some superstar per game numbers,  32.3 pts – 8.2 rebs – 5 assists – 2 steals. He shot a ton — 89 times in the four games — and made 53%, hitting 10 of 28 from 3-point-land. 

I’m beginning to get a better sense of how Middleton arrived at the rather off-the-wall idea that the Bucks should have two All-Stars this year, and maybe he did get a vote or two. I’m also reminded that his 18.2 pts per game led the Bucks in scoring in the 2016-17 season. Over the 17 games Prunty coached that season while Kidd was recovering from back surgery, Middleton scored more, at a clip of 22.7 ppg.

Had the Bucks been winning (they won only 33 games), Middleton might have earned an All-Star nod with stats like those above — he was shooting close to 50-40-90. Middleton’s a bargain now and is due $13 million next season, and can (and almost surely will) opt out of the final year of his contract 2019-20. Sooner than later, the Bucks will be paying Giannis, Bledsoe and Parker more than Middleton, assuming the Bucks are able to resign Parker, which GM Jon Horst says he plans to do.

With Parker back from rehab and the Bucks (and Middleton) continuing to log games like Friday’s loss to the Heat, time is suddenly moving fast for this team. Or, as Steve McQueen so succinctly put it in the crime film classic, Bullitt,  “Time starts now.” 

In 322 games as a Buck, Middleton has led the team in rebounding a total of eight times. The three games this season were noted above. Here are the box scores from the other five, starting with the most recent first, in chronological order back to 2014.

  • 03/11/17 vs. the T-Wolves in Milwaukee. Karl-Anthony Towns had a big game but Monroe and Henson battled him well off the bench. Middleton led with 9 rebounds. Giannis played 40 mins yet somehow got to only 4 rebounds. Bucks won 102-95.
  • 11/07/15 vs. the Nets in Milwaukee. Middleton took only six shots in the Bucks 94-86 win, but led with 9 rebounds and 7 assists.
  • 03/07/2015 vs the Wizards in Milwaukee. Middleton led in scoring (30) and rebounding (9) as the Bucks won a close one to pull within a game-and-a-half of WAS in the East standings. Giannis, Middleton and Henson are the only current Bucks in the box score. Parker was out rehabbing from his first ACL surgery.
  • 02/11/15 vs. the Kings in Milwaukee. Bucks lose the rebounding battle to DeMarcus Cousins and Jason Thompson but win the game, 111-103, pushing their record to 30-23. Middleton led the Bucks with 10 rebs, three on offense. Whatever happened to Jason Thompson?*³
  • 01/04/14 vs. the Suns in Phoenix. The Bucks shot 54% but turned it over 25 times to lose 116-100. Middleton came off the bench to score 7 and pull down 8 defensive boards in 22 minutes.

*¹ Referee Tyler Ford (he’s on pg. 42 of the 2017-18 Officials Guide), in his 3rd NBA season, is a former Big Ten ref from that part of west Ohio that’s more like Indiana and Ford is every bit that fresh faced Midwestern kid with big ears who’s in every Hollywood army unit. Ford called 23 fouls — 11 in the 4th quarter, of the Bucks-Heat game Friday. The Heat actually got the worst of it, but not until after the Bucks fell behind by 18 in the 4th after consecutive Wayne Ellington threes. The Heat could do little wrong for the first 15 minutes of the 2nd half, despite hacking at Bucks anytime the drove near the basket. I suppose by the 4th quarter Ford had realized that Aaron Smith, the ref under the Heat basket, wasn’t going to police the Heat defense, so he took it upon himself to make Smith’s calls for him, apparently unconcerned that his hyper-active whistle made him appear insane – on TV no less. I’ll salute anybody willing and unafraid to appear insane in the course of righting wrongs being committed all around him in Miami on Friday. Here’s to Tyler Ford.

  Prunty tied to trick the rotations by pulling Giannis out of any 3rd quarter after just 4:34. If the justification is to get the rotations started early, around the 5 minute mark, Giannis is the last guy you want coming out of the game. Add to this the fact that the game was close, 53-50, and Miami center Whiteside had three fouls when Prunty sent Giannis to the bench, and picked up his 4th a minute later and was taken out of the game. Giannis was not in the game to take advantage of Whiteside’s absence, obviously, and the deficit was 12 by the time Prunty subbed Giannis back in with about 3:40 left in the quarter. The Bucks scored a measly 8 pts in the quarter.

  • *² The tried and true strategy is to have the superstar play continuously for about 10 minutes in the 3rd quarter, then pull him inside of 2 minutes to go to steal some extra rest over the quarter change. Here’s a Pelicans – Pistons play-by-play from Monday night where coach Alvin Gentry manages to do exactly this with Anthony Davis’ minutes. The Pelicans won by 15.  

*³ Jason Thompson left the NBA for the Chinese league Shandong Golden Stars in 2016, and is currently playing pro ball in Turkey with Fenerbahce Dogus Instanbul. There are big men out there, playing in all four corners of the globe. I can’t imagine the Bucks billionaire owners having too much difficulty buying out the contracts of big centers like Thompson or former Buck Miroslav Raduljica, the tough Serb who powered Team Serbia past Andrew Bogut and the Aussie Boomers to the silver medal in the last Olympics. Raduljica’s now playing for the Jiangsu Dragons of the Chinese Basketball Assoc. — and it looks like their season has come to an end. (edit: I’m beginning to think that if the Bucks were going to sign Bogut, it would’ve happened already. The Bucks may not be on his list.)

Sourcerole – Gamebook, Bucks vs. Miami, 02/09/18. The Bucks regular season series against the Heat has turned out to be an important measuring stick for “how things are going”, and this final game of series was no different. https://data.nba.net/10s/prod/v1/20180209/0021700821_Book.pdf

Khris Middleton an All-Star? Not this year, the Eastern Conference coaches say, for the 3rd time . . . The Miami effect . . . Kemba Walker

Goran Dragic didn’t quite have All-Star numbers this season, but his Miami Heat did, going 6-0 against the Bucks and the Hornets and vaulting to 4th in East with a 27-20 record just in time for the coaches reserve All-Star voting. The Bucks face the Heat in Miami tonight in the teams’ last regular season meeting. Photo: Jeff Wheeler, Minn. Star Tribune. License: Standard non-commercial use.

Bucks forward Khris Middleton felt “disrespected” when Miami point guard Goran Dragic was selected to replace injured Kevin Love in the All-Star game. He was disappointed again this week as Charlotte point guard Kemba Walker was chosen to take Kristaps Porzingis‘ place in the Feb. 18 game.

Porzingis tore the ACL in his left knee earlier this week in the Knicks 103-89 loss to Middleton’s Bucks. Funny, just before the game Middleton was talking to JS reporter Matt Velazquez about how it really did kind of bother him that he was passed up — not once, but twice — to replace injured All-Stars (Detroit center Andre Drummond was tabbed to replace injured John Wall Jan. 30).

“I definitely feel disrespected because of the numbers that I had and we had a good record,” Middleton said before the Knicks game, not specifically referring to Dragic or Drummond. [Drummond shoots 55% from the floor and is leading the league in rebounding; to this point in the season (Feb. 8), he’s been the 3rd most statistically impactful player in the NBA, according to BIER* — so it was most likely the selection of Dragic that left Middleton feeling dissed.] 

Drummond  was 13th in the coaches vote, so he was next in line. Dragic was next in line after Drummond, according to NBA.com.

How did Dragic end up with more votes than Middleton or Kemba Walker? The coaches voted after the announcement of the starting All-Stars  Thursday Jan. 18 on TNT. The All-Star reserves were announced Tuesday Jan. 23, so the votes were cast that weekend, Jan. 19- 22. I seem to recall that Bucks GM Jon Horst sacked coach Jason Kidd on Jan. 22, and that Middleton was not playing particularly well at the time — but this is about Dragic and the Heat.

The Heat were 27-20 on Jan. 18, and winners of 8 of their last 9 games, including two wins against the Bucks in four days. Dragic had dropped 25 on the Bucks in a blowout in Miami and 16 in a down-to-the wire 106-101 win in Milwaukee. The Heat were alone in 4th place in the East.

The Bucks were in a different place altogether, and had lost four of their last six games, including the two they lost to the Heat, and had fallen to 7th in the East with a 24-22 record. Over those 6 games, Middleton scored 18.2 pts per game but shot just 42.6% and 7 for 31 on threes (22.6%). Not to pick on Khris — Eric Bledsoe was mired in a shooting slump and the entire team looked gassed vs. Miami Jan. 17, their 13th game in 23 days — but the two losses in four days to the Heat became kind of memorable when Kidd was fired just a few days later.

It’s a strange disconnect. Middleton may have had “All-Star-like” numbers but they were slipping. The Bucks weren’t winning when the coaches were casting their ballots and Giannis Antetokounmpo had won a starter’s spot, so the idea of a 2nd Bucks All-Star was pretty far-fetched, no matter how much anybody loves the team. If a Bucks player got any reserve All-Star votes from the coaches, chances are it was Bledsoe, who had higher impact numbers (6.74 BIER) than Middleton (5.37 BIER) at the half-way point, before wearing down mid-January.

Middleton’s numbers are looking better now (20.1 pts, 5.3 rebs, 4.2 assists, 5.78 BIER) than they did then; he won Eastern Conference Player of the Week Jan. 22-28, and the Bucks have won 7 of 8.

In those 8 games (Jan. 22-Feb. 6) since Kidd was fired, Middleton has played like an All-Star, scoring 20.1 pts per game and shooting 42% from three and 50.4% overall, a BIER of 8.57, more than double the average for a small forward. But those games were played AFTER the All-Star ballots were cast.

(The non-reality of the Velazquez’s story yesterday deserves a note, here — none of it was real.)

“It wasn’t lies, it was just bullshit.” — Elwood Blues, circa 1979.

Put the shooting slump and the good shooting together and you’ve got Khris Middleton’s season – prolonged lows mixed with All-Star highs, a borderline All-Star with no cool shoe commercial running 24 hours on ESPN (yeah, that’s a crack at Paul George).

Below are the 2017-18 per game stats of Middleton and Kemba Walker, plus Ben Simmons, Blake Griffin and Otto Porter. Simmons’ name was mentioned as a possible choice to replace Porzingis. Griffin’s a bonafide All-Star suddenly playing in the East after being traded to Detroit. Wizards forward Porter plays the same wing-small forward position as Middleton. And there’s Dragic, picked ahead of the other five for this year’s All-Star game.

Per Game Table
Player G MP FG FGA FG% 3P% eFG% FT FT% TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
Goran Dragic 50 31.9 6.5 14.7 .443 .356 .493 2.9 .762 4.1 4.8 0.9 0.2 2.4 2.3 17.4
Blake Griffin 37 34.4 7.7 17.5 .439 .337 .493 5.2 .790 7.9 5.5 0.9 0.3 2.9 2.4 22.5
Khris Middleton 53 36.9 7.4 15.9 .464 .348 .522 3.5 .864 5.3 4.2 1.3 0.2 2.3 3.2 20.1
Otto Porter 50 31.6 5.5 11.2 .489 .410 .562 1.4 .831 6.2 2.0 1.6 0.5 0.9 2.1 14.0
Ben Simmons 50 35.1 7.0 13.3 .529 .000 .529 2.6 .564 7.8 7.2 1.8 0.9 3.7 2.8 16.6
Kemba Walker 51 35.0 7.5 17.7 .424 .367 .502 4.9 .846 3.4 5.8 1.1 0.3 2.2 1.4 22.6
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 2/8/2018.

 

It’s a tough call, sort of. At first glance, I wouldn’t cast an All-Star vote for any of them. Blake Griffin’s not having a good shooting year and has missed some games due to injury, but his numbers still say “All-Star” (he wasn’t eligible as an East reserve, anyway). Simmons’ numbers look great – 7.8 rebs, 7 assists, 53% shooting – from a rookie! But he is a rookie, and at last check his team was 2-8 without center Joel Embiid, an All-Star starter. Maybe next year for Simmons, if the Sixers continue to improve.

Otto Porter’s efficiency numbers are fantastic, and he’s a tough defender — he battled Middleton to a 5-13 shooting night, 0 for 4 on threes, in Milwaukee earlier this year. The Wizards have been winning without John Wall, and Porter has a lot to do with that — but he just doesn’t score enough at 14.0 pts per game.

Middleton does have a point — Dragic’s numbers aren’t that hot, and his BIER* checks in at 4.42, just 0.36 above the average for an NBA point guard. Miami’s All-Star is Hassan Whiteside, the center, but Whiteside hasn’t played enough this year to merit All-Star consideration. So it fell to Dragic, proof that coaches value winning more than numbers when choosing All-Stars.  Whiteside, Dragic and the Heat are 6-0 against Walker’s Hornets and Middleton’s Bucks. Enuff said.

Middleton’s numbers are nearly good enough, and the BIER works out to 5.84, his best season. His 3-point % is down — 34.8% is below the league average. There are 25 teams that have shot the three better than Khris this year, and his teammates are one of them. On the other hand, he’s 2nd to only Steph Curry in mid-range shootings this season at 52.3%.  The bag tends to be mixed with Middleton. One of the issues during his slump was that Jason Kidd was guilty of overplaying him, insisting on big minutes on nights when Middleton didn’t have it.

The Bucks face the Heat for the last time this season tonight in Miami. Winning a game against the Heat this season might help Middleton’s argument, though the point itself is moot. The Heat have lost five in a row, and Kelly Olynyk‘s not expected to play (out with a shoulder strain). The Bucks have a chance to steal one on the road. (Ed. note – it didn’t happen, as the Bucks played a miserable 3rd quarter, scoring only 8 points, and their 4th quarter comeback fell short 91-85.) 

Kemba Walker actually has a better Impact and Efficiency rating (7.26) than John Wall (6.20) this season — it was a down year for Wall even before he hurt his knee, which made his All-Star selection a bit of a surprise. Walker could be more efficient as a shooter, and his good and bad shooting tends to come in streaks. Charlotte’s troubles as a team shooting the ball (they’re 29th in the league) and the difficulties they’ve had winning close games made Wall an easier choice by default (and Drummond and Dragic, too, based on the results).

The Miami-Dragic effect on Kemba Walker’s season was far more dire than an All-Star snub. The Hornets lost all four of their games with the Heat this season, all the difference between being in the playoff hunt or out of it at 23-31. The season in shambles, the Hornets front office was scouting trade offers for Walker up until the deadline yesterday at 3 p.m., hoping the lure of Walker would get other teams to take some of their bad contracts with him. Within hours, Walker went from the trading block to being named the All-Star replacement for Porzingis. Then the Hornets went out and lost an overtime game in Portland.

It’s been that kind of season for Charlotte — a dozen losses by 5 points or less or in OT, three of them to the Heat (the 4th loss was by six). None were more poignant than the 106-105 loss on Jan. 20, the weekend the East coaches were clutching their All-Star reserve ballots. Dragic didn’t play due to a bruised knee. The Hornets had control of the game, a ten point lead at the end of the 3rd quarter. Walker was playing like an All-Star — 20 pts and 6 assists through three quarters. But two costly turnovers by Charlotte’s Nic Batum and a controversial call by the refs handed the game to the Heat.

In the 4th and final Heat-Hornets game, Jan. 27, Charlotte blew a 15 point lead and shot a horrendous 4 for 20 in the 4th Quarter. Walker was again playing All-Star basketball through three quarters (26 pts) but went cold in the 4th, shot 1 for 8 from the floor and 1 for 5 from three. Dragic played, and had all of five points, missing 6 of the 8 shots he took. It’s been that kind of year in Charlotte.

*Basketball Impact & Efficiency Rating (BIER) numbers (current)

  • Greg Drummond – 17.36 – leads the league.
  • Giannis Antetokounmp – 16.34 – 3rd in NBA. Anthony Davis is 2nd at 16.82
  • Ben Simmons – 8.98
  • Blake Griffin – 8.40
  • Kemba Walker – 7.26
  • Paul George – 6.86
  • John Wall – 6.20
  • Khris Middleton – 5.84
  • Kristaps Porzingis – 5.69
  • Eric Bledsoe – 5.61
  • Goran Dragic – 4.42

NBA Trade Deadline: Another aimless trade blog to kill some time while waiting for something interesting to happen

The day’s last tweets from Adrian Wojnarowski went out just before 2 AM, 13 hours before today’s 3pm EST deadline. He sounded oh so bored and tired of this year’s edition of “NBA Trade Deadline”.

All’s (not quite) quiet on the DeAndre Jordan trade front, and it’s probably a good thing.

(Edit: Six hours later, Woj took it back of course, the Cavs-Clipper talks r.e. DeAndre Jordan being the big story churning today over at ESPN, employer of Woj).

Interest in Clippers center DeAndre Jordan has dropped off with word that Jordan isn’t willing to opt in for next season as part of any deal. Cleveland won’t give up its Brooklyn pick in a deal for Jordan or any other player. Stalemate. Lou Williams just signed a contract to stay with the Clippers, so Williams-related rumors are dead. Blake Griffin and Andre Drummond have won five straight in Detroit.

There have been all of four trades made this year and the trade deadline is just hours away. If I were you, I would just stop reading this and find something more interesting to do until NBA Trading Deadline 2018 has passed us all by.

Cleveland just blew up its roster — first a trade with the Lakers, then a 3-team deal with the Kings and Jazz; and the Cavs sent Dwyane Wade back to Miami for a draft pick so he could finish his career with the Heat. — 11:44 AM (something did finally happen)

So far no teams have been willing to give up a first round draft pick to help move their contract mistakes (this applies to the Bucks and their group of $10 million a year investments).  Over at ESPN, Zach Lowe has figured out that it makes a lot more sense to do a sign and trade deal for Jordan after the season ends than to trade for him now. The Bucks were mentioned once in the ESPN article, something about “poking around” r.e. DeAndre Jordan, nothing more.

I looked up my old “survival guide” to the NBA trading deadline (from last year) and made sure I wasn’t breaking any rules and realized I’m probably taking this year’s episode too seriously. 

I ran through all the deals John Hammond made while he was in the Bucks front office, 2008-2007, and found nothing involving Miami. In fact, I can’t remember any trade between the Bucks and the Heat, ever. Apparently Miami GM Pat Riley doesn’t do business with the Bucks, and Riley’s been in Miami a long, long time. The only thing I can recall is Riley jacking up the Bucks signing price of Charlie Bell back in 2007 by proffering an offer sheet to Bell. Remembering that took a lot out of me.

If the Heat were ever serious about trading Hassan Whiteside, which they aren’t, winning 9 out of 11 games Dec. 30 – Jan. 20 changed their minds. Since then, the Heat have lost 7 out 9, and they’re still not serious about trading Whiteside. But just for argument’s sake in the universe of made up trade possibilities, Riley probably wouldn’t take Bucks GM Jon Horst’s calls.

Horst might want to call his old boss Hammond over in Orlando. Hammond is sure to take the call, and nearly the entire Magic roster is on the trading block, including Jonathon Simmons, who made his mark with the Spurs last season during the playoffs. Simmons is known for toughness and defense on the perimeter, but he can score it too, pouring in 34 pts in the Magic win vs. the Cavs on Tuesday. The Bucks could use all they help they can get at guard with Malcolm Brogdon out of action for another six or seven weeks.

Jonathon Simmons flushed the Cavs Tuesday night, scoring 34 pts on 12 of 17 shooting in the Magic’s 116-98 win. Orlando GM John Hammond was entertaining offers on Simmons and most of the Magic roster this week. Photo license: Standard non-commercial use.

There are many shooting/combo guards for sale (Rodney Hood, Simmons, Avery Bradley, Kemba WalkerMarcus Smart) but teams aren’t jumping at the opportunity to spend a first round pick on one, not even for Tyreke Evans, who finally got back to his 2010 rookie-of-the-year form in Memphis this season, averaging 19.5 pts, 5 rebs, 5 assists. Evans will be traded somewhere, the consensus says, and seven teams are in the mix, including Boston and Philly. I don’t know why the Celtics would give up battle-tested Smart in an attempt to acquire Evans, who has little playoff experience — but it’s the NBA trading deadline — nothing has to make sense and it gives NBA media a chance to talk about the Celtics, which NBA media likes to do.

Philly is in “buy” mode — the Sixers want to make the playoffs. Unfortunately, Detroit has won five straight since trading their shooting guard, Avery Bradley, for power forward Blake Griffin, and will have something to say about the Sixers chances of making the playoffs. The pairing of Griffin and All-Star center Andre Drummond (and giving up Bradley and Tobias Harris to do it) was considered by many a bold but futile move in today’s 3-happy NBA, but Griffin’s ability to push the offense into the paint, where Drummond can clean up, is proving pretty effective.

Drummond’s been on a roll since the Pistons acquired Griffin and it’s pushed his impact numbers past Anthony Davis‘ and Giannis Antetokounmpo‘s and into the NBA lead, with a BIER rating of 17.36. Score one for big-man-centric basketball in Detroit. … So far. Griffin has a habit of not staying healthy.

There were no trades on Tuesday and only one yesterday: The Knicks traded Willy Hernangomez to Charlotte. Hernangomez had asked to be traded because he wasn’t getting any minutes in NY, and it looks like that request came more recently than this week, according to ESPN. Did the Bucks make an offer for Hernangomez before trading for Zeller? Were the Bucks even aware the young center had requested a trade, or was it too late?

Hernangomez, from Spain, was an All-Rookie selection last season and is a quick, athletic 23-year-old center who’s kind of like Zeller with bounce – a lot more bounce. He’s ideal in many ways for today’s game. Charlotte acquired him for forward Johnny O’Bryant and 2020 and 2021 second round draft picks. The Bucks might have offered Rashad Vaughn and the rest of the protections on the 2018 2nd round pick, same deal they made with Brooklyn – but Charlotte picks are better picks than Milwaukee picks these days.

Thon Maker for Hernangomez? Would the Knicks have gone for that? The Bucks aren’t there yet. Probably not even close.

And none of this ever happened.

Tyler Zeller really is all there is.

I almost forgot: Ersan Ilyasova, the most tradeable man in the NBA, is once again on the trading block, and it’s still funny. He’s having a decent year in Atlanta despite the Hawks’ losing ways — his 56.5% True Shooting % is the 2nd best of his career (his career best was 57.7% with the Bucks in 2012) and he’s averaging 7.7 rebs per 36 mins. Overall, his Impact and Efficiency (BIER) rating is 7.16, higher than a few players named All-Stars and a few more being talking about as the replacement for injured Kristaps Porzingis. He has played 26 mins per game in Atlanta.

Ersan’s playing on a one-year $6 million contract. The Hawks have shopped Ilyasova and another shooting guard for the field, Marco Belinelli.

 

Trade Deadline: Bucks still need help at center . . . Hassan Whiteside is not named Zeller or Plumlee . . . The Stepien rule and the Bucks 2018 pick

“Is anybody going to actually read this trade deadline ^%@#?” Tyler Zeller (left) and John Henson, who were college teammates at North Carolina, discuss future possible trades and possibly the finer points of retro disco (when Zeller was still a Celtic, obviously). Photo from USA Today. License: Standard non-commercial use.

John Henson hauled down 15 rebounds against the Nets Sunday night, but nobody’s fooled. The Nets are the Nets. They start rookie Jarrett Allen at center and play the worst kind of small ball — where everybody shoots 1 for 6 from three and wishes they were Golden State or Houston.

The Bucks brass couldn’t help but notice the Nets weren’t playing forward-center Tyler Zeller, so Zeller became a Buck on Monday, traded for Rashad Vaughn and a 2nd round pick. A nice pick-up because Vaughn, the beleaguered 1st round bust from the 2015 draft, had little more than a cheerleaders’ role on the Bucks — and still, nobody was fooled.

The Bucks need bigger and better help in the middle than anybody named Zeller or Plumlee or Henson or Maker can provide, and the Feb. 8 trade deadline is fast approaching, just two days away. If five January losses to teams with Bucks-destroying big men — Toronto (Jonas Valanciunas), Philly (Joel Embiid) and Miami (Hassan Whiteside) — didn’t sufficiently freak out Bucks GM Jon Horst, news of the Celtics acquisition of the Moose, Greg Monroe, had to come on like a bad dream. The centers may be dinosaurs in the West the Warriors made, but can the Bucks survive the Jurassic Age of the Eastern Conference playoffs with their current crew of average-at-best big men?

[They’re ecstatic about Monroe in Boston. See “Monroe Doctrine: Celtics Rx for ‘man, we could really use 2 points right now'”. They haven’t yet realized what a good passer out of the post the Moose is (7th-best assist rate among qualifying centers last season). Or that he really can’t jump, but the easy offense off the bench he brings has been missed badly in Milwaukee since the trade. And we miss the “Moooose” call too – but that goes without saying – edit]. 

The Raptors, Heat and Celtics are very possible playoff opponents for the Bucks, so a defensive-minded big man is the Bucks Rx for “why can’t we grab a rebound?”

The Buck “most likely” to be traded, says Yahoo sports, is John Henson. Henson’s got two more years guaranteed after this season at $10.6m and $9.7 million, not a terrible salary bite for an average center, and, as such he’s the most appealing of the Bucks four $10-million-a-year guaranteed players. Trade rumors are buzzing around a bunch of NBA big men – DeAndre Jordan, Robin Lopez, Tyson Chandler and Whiteside, so there’s certain logic to this. But are any of these trades doable for the Bucks?

Robin Lopez is a real NBA center who wonders why referees don’t like him more. Lopez got kicked out the Bulls-Kings game last night, apparently for gestures less thought-provoking than this one during his days in Portland. Photo license: Standard non-commercial use.

A Robin Lopez trade with Chicago seems pretty easy salary-wise, and the Bulls are in “sellers” mode after trading Mirotic to New Orleans. But the Bucks have one too many of those $10 million contracts guaranteed next season-and-beyond and want to reduce salary load next season if they can (ostensibly to pay Jabari Parker). Lopez’s salary next season is $3.8 million more than Henson’s. The Bucks could add in rookie D.J. Wilson to reduce the load next season. But even with Wilson off the books they’d be adding $1.5 next season in a Lopez-Henson deal. And it doesn’t sound like the Bulls want to add a contract like Henson’s, guaranteed through 2020

Trading with the Bucks is difficult – they have no sizable expiring contracts but Jabari Parker, just now coming back from his second ACL surgery. Bucks GM Jon Horst says he wants to resign Parker after this season, but the Bucks don’t have the money to get it done without jumping into the luxury tax zone, which may be unavoidable at this point, given the Bucks “win a championship” mindset. Parker’s clearly an asset, not a salary dump, one the Bucks should hang on to, but I’m not sure I believe Horst isn’t considering trade options for everybody but Giannis Antetokounmpo and maybe Malcolm Brogdon and Eric Bledsoe, the last regular guard standing now that both Brogdon and backup Matthew Dellavedova are sidelined. 

It would be totally insane for the Bucks to trade for Jordan, who can opt out of his contract at the end of the season, but writing about it was a good excuse to bring up “the Stepien rule”, and whether the Bucks can trade their 2018 1st Round draft pick. Photo from USA Today. License: Standard non-commercial use.

DeAndre Jordan can opt out and become a restricted free agent after this season, and the Clippers would want Jabari Parker in any Henson deal, not Khris Middleton. They would go for Henson, Parker and the Bucks 2018 1st round draft pick, but including that pick gets complicated because of “the Stepien rule” about trading future draft picks. Besides, the latest reports are that the Clippers are balking at taking Cleveland’s 2018 1st round pick. They want the Brooklyn pick the Cavs received in the Kyrie Irving trade last summer, but the Cavs are worried about rebuilding if Lebron leaves, so they’re loathe to part with the Brooklyn pick.

If they don’t want the Cavs own pick, how much interest in the Bucks 2018 pick would they have, realizing that the Bucks would have to put conditions on the pick in order to trade it? Technically, and as far as I can tell after reading up on “the Stepien rule”, the Bucks CAN trade the 2018 pick, but would have to get another team to agree to hand over a 2019 pick in the event the Bucks don’t win next season. “The Stepien rule” prevents any team from trading two consecutive future 1st round draft picks. The Bucks pick would go to Phoenix as part of the Monroe-Bledsoe deal if the Bucks finish 15th in the league or worse this season or next season, not something that appears to be in the cards, but that doesn’t matter. There are conditions on the Bucks first round picks through 2021, and the rules say each of those picks are already traded until the Bucks actually convey a pick to Phoenix, which will most likely happen in 2020. Getting a conditional replacement for the next season’s pick is the loophole for trading this season’s pick.

To do anything, the Bucks may need to find the extra pick first, and then see whether they can put together a deal. Too complicated? Probably — and, of course the Clippers would love to have Jabari Parker, knee surgeries and all, in exchange for a 33-year-old free-agent-to-be DeAndre Jordan. It’s not happening. Jordan has a new agent, Jason Kidd‘s guy Jeff Schwartz, and they’re not open to Jordan opting in with anybody as part of the trade, which the Wizards are finding out. Anyway, there’s a better deal out there for the Bucks.

Hassan Whiteside was scratching his head over the Heat’s loss to Orlando last night, wondering why he didn’t get more touches in the game. He may also be questioning the shot selection of his teammates or the Orlando point guard, Elfrid Payton. It’s like that for big men in the NBA these days. Photo from the Miami Herald. License: Standard non-commercial use.

A Hassan Whiteside trade may be less on Miami GM Pat Riley‘s mind these days than it was before the Heat won 8 out of 9 games, culminating in their 106-101 defeat of the worn out Bucks in Milwaukee Jan. 17, just days before coach Jason Kidd was fired. Oh, the trouble the Heat have stirred up in the East. The Milwaukee game had implications, and so did two down-to-the-wire Miami wins against Charlotte during that stretch — the Hornets went a winless 0-4 against the Heat this season, a season in shambles, and now Kemba Walker‘s on the trading block because there’s nobody else on the Hornets roster of much interest to other teams.

Since that win in Milwaukee, however, the Heat have lost 7 out of 10 games, including losses to Cleveland, Philly and Detroit. They’ve fallen to 7th in the East behind the Bucks and Pacers after losing to Orlando at home Monday night. The Heat may reassess where they’re really at, given how close so many of their recent victories have been. Have they been lucky or good? Erik Spoelstra’s one of the savviest coaches in the league and Whiteside’s arguably the most impactful center in the game — but he’s a part-time player in Miami right now, averaging 26 mins per game. The rest of the roster seems to get it done with mirrors, and, in the view of Hornets, a lot help from the referees.

Henson ($11.4m) and Khris Middleton ($14.1m) for Whiteside ($23.8m) is nice and neat salary-wise, and a good return for both teams. Miami gets a 20-pt per games scorer in Middleton, who doesn’t seem happy playing second fiddle to Giannis in Milwaukee, and a less expensive part-time center in Henson. Middleton is more reliable and efficient than the Grizzlies’ Tyreke Evans, the scorer Miami is rumored to be targeting. For the Bucks, a lineup of Giannis, Whiteside, Parker and Eric Bledsoe is scary good, plus factor in injured Malcolm Brogdon for the playoffs with Zeller and Tony Snell (Zelly, Snelly and Delly?). The Bucks would likely contend, not just this season but next. They would almost surely be paying luxury tax next season for that group, assuming they resign Parker, but the tax would happen anyway if the Bucks do nothing with the current roster.

If paying luxury taxes in either scenario, what’s the better buy? The team with Hassan Whiteside at center or the team with John Henson at center?

Tyson Chandler was assumed to be on Jason Kidd’s wish list, but if a Henson-Chandler deal was going to happen, it would have happened by now. The Bucks really could have used Chandler in January. Another dead end.

Andrew Bogut is still out there, sitting around the house, sending out tweets about Australian rules football and political correctness.  #Bogut  Whatever happens at the trade deadline this week, the Bucks have until March 1 to sign Bogut for the stretch run and playoffs.

And the Lakers have been fined $50,000 because Magic Johnson said nice things about Giannis in an ESPN article. Because Magic is the Lakers GM, that’s “tampering”. ESPN received no fine for pandering to Magic’s need to be talked to in an article about Giannis.

Things seem awfully quiet for the Bucks, with the deadline two days away. And remember, none of this is real until it actually happens, and don’t believe a word of this or any other blog during trade deadline week.

The Stepien Rule

“The Stepien rule” prevents any team from trading two consecutive future 1st round draft picks. The rule was named after Ted Stepien, owner of the Cavs in the early 1980s who traded his 1982-85 first rounders in repeated attempts to win with “veterans” like Mike Bratz and Bill Robinzine, while trying to build teams that were, in his view “racially balanced” – half white, half black, to better reflect the NBA audience. While those were real enough issues at the time, Stepien’s efforts to build a winner were more half-assed than anything else and the league froze his ability to make trades while it sought a new buyer for the team. Stepien sold the team in 1983.

But the damage to the league’s competitive balance had been done. Dallas was able to build a contender on draft picks acquired from Cleveland (Derek Harper, Sam Perkins, Roy Tarpley and Detlef Schrempf), not that Stepien’s picks got the Mavs to the NBA Finals in the 1980s with the Lakers dominating the West. But Stepien playing a role in building the Lakers juggernaut. The Lakers won the 1982 NBA championship and, thanks to a Stepien trade in 1980 for forward Don Ford, languishing on the Lakers’ bench and the Lakers 1980 pick, ended up with the No. 1 overall pick in the 1982 draft (the Cavs also sent Marquette star Butch Lee to the Lakers). The Lakers used the pick to take Hall of Fame forward James Worthy, the can’t-miss star forward on North Carolina’s 1982 NCAA championship team. Their dynasty would have to wait a couple of years for Worthy to catch up, while Moses Malone‘s Sixers and Larry Bird‘s Celtics took the 1983 and 1984 titles, respectively. The Lakers circa 1985-87 are considered by many the greatest team in NBA history during a time of greatest teams (the 1983 Sixers and the 1986 Celtics also being in the conversation).

Sourcerole

  • Yahoo sports, one player on every NBA team likely to be traded: https://sports.yahoo.com/one-player-every-nba-team-likely-traded-221004964.html
  • The Sporting News, 02/05/18, “Don’t expect Whiteside deal”: http://www.sportingnews.com/nba/news/nba-trade-rumors-hassan-whiteside-miami-heat-news-deadline-contract-cavs-celtics/d018shcs5il919316jg3uc60a
  • The Sporting News: Deandre Jordan to the Cavs?http://www.sportingnews.com/nba/news/nba-trade-rumors-deandre-jordan-cavs-news-contract-clippers-tristan-thompson-jr-smith/sqmufzplhlsg1begzfudly0fw
  • HoopsRumors.com, best explanation of the Stepian rule I could find: https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2017/09/trade-restrictions-on-future-draft-picks-by-team.html
  • Fox sports Australia: “Ted Stepien rule” inspires Australian football changes on future draft picks, including history of how the Stepien rule came to be, complete with a ridiculously huge picture of James Worthy. https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/how-nbas-stepien-rule-inspired-afls-to-introduce-trading-future-draft-picks/news-story/177351267209c2c523a693d4214a7e4a

Jason Kidd firing: When “win now” becomes impatience . . . the #FireKidd summer ale . . . It’s the schedule, stupid

Jason Kidd during the Bucks-Wizards game 1/15/18. AP photo by Nick Wass. License: Standard non-commercial use.

Maybe it was worth it. The Bucks were 3-0 last week after firing coach Jason Kidd (along with three of his assistants), a sudden move that upset Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo but had at least some positive effect on his teammates. Kidd assistant Joe Prunty took over as interim head coach, and Khris Middleton, the Bucks’ up-again, down-again No. 2 scorer, was named Eastern Conference Player of the Week for the week Jan. 22-28.

Maybe it could have waited. Given the choices of making Antetokounmpo less than happy or “uncomfortable”, as he put itor maintaining the coach’s uneasy status quo with some of Giannis’ under-performing teammates, it’s difficult to say that sacking Kidd mid-season was the right one for Bucks first-year GM Jon Horst. The three opponents the Bucks beat last week (the Suns, Nets and Bulls) had a combined winning percentage of .353 (a 53-97 record), a bad sample group to conclude much of anything about the state of the Bucks.

The Bucks opened this week with a 107-95 win against the Joel Embiid-less Sixers. The Sixers without Embiid have been even less successful than the Suns, Nets and Bulls, winning only twice in ten tries. Embiid scored 29 points in the Sixers’ 116-94 drubbing of the Bucks Jan. 20 in Philly, Kidd’s last game as Bucks coach. (Giannis was held out of action in that game to rest his sore right knee. Malcolm Brogdon also did not play due to a personal matter.)

But then Horst’s decision to sack Kidd was less a reasoned choice, apparently, and more so the final say in a nasty confrontation between Horst and Kidd at the Bucks practice facility on that fateful Monday. This explains a lot, like the hurried press conference later that day, wherein Horst offered few details to justify the firing, beyond overall team performance. The Bucks lost 5 of the last 7 games coached by Kidd, the tail end of a brutal stretch — 13 games in 23 days, all but two against teams now in playoff spots. Bucks won 6 of the 13, then lost to the Embiid-ful Sixers.

Jon Horst, the Bucks 34-year-old GM. Bucks media photo. License: Standard non-commercial use.

“We just felt that we’d gotten to the point in the season where this team could do more; it could perform at different level in a different way,” Horst said, adding that the Bucks were “looking for a fresh approach and a different voice in leadership for the team.”

There’s no question they had reached a point where things would be different with the toughest part of the schedule behind them. The softest part of the 2017-18 schedule began Jan. 23, the day after Kidd was fired — three off-days followed by 11 games to the Feb. 16 All-Star break, only two of the games against sure-fire playoff teams (the T-Wolves Feb. 1 and the Heat Feb. 9).

So whether Horst had terminated Kidd’s employment then and there or waited to make an evaluation in the summer, the Bucks were going to get some time to recuperate and (hopefully) stockpile some wins. For a while, at least, they would not be as exhausted as they looked losing at home to Miami on Jan. 17. The Bucks weren’t going to hover around .500 for long. Horst didn’t offer much detail about other “differences” beyond the coaching change. Different from what?

The Bucks offense has been in the NBA’s top 10 all season, and is rated 9th as of this writing. Under Kidd these last four seasons, the Bucks have been a habitual “smart shot selection” team that tends to play unselfishly but has resorted to more isolation sets with Antetokounmpo’s rise to stardom. Giannis is 2nd in the league in scoring at 28.5 ppg and will start in his 2nd All-Star game. The Bucks rank 5th in both True Shooting and Effective Shooting % this season, and with Jabari Parker cleared to play this week and set to suit up Friday against the Knicks, the Bucks offense looked to be formidable in the stretch run no matter who was coaching. The job fell to Prunty, Kidd’s top assistant, who posted an 8-9 record in 2015-16 when Kidd was out having hip surgery.

The defense is a different story — good in spots, sluggish in general and too often dreadful and foul prone. Only Memphis has been hit with more fouls per 100 possessions than the Bucks this season; and Bucks opponents get three more trips to the free throw line per game than the NBA average. Some of the trouble is referee-induced (the Cavs shot an absurd 38 FTs in Cleveland Nov. 7; the Rockets shot 42 in Houston Dec. 16).

But some of it is roster-induced. The Bucks play two slow footed guards, Brogdon and Matthew Dellavedova, and their centers (John Henson and Thon Maker) are foul prone, among other deficiencies. (Those four lead the regular rotation players in fouls per 36 minutes.) And there is no defensive-minded, shut down forward on the Bucks bench (think Andre Iguodala, P.J. TuckerJared Dudley). Oddly enough, since the Bucks lost Mirza Teletovic to health issues, there are usually no forwards on the bench at all other than rookie D. J. Wilson, and he’s rarely played.

Some of it probably was on coach Kidd. Since ranking 3rd in defensive rating in 2015, Kidd’s first season, the Bucks slipped to 23rd in 2016, 19th last year and 24th this season, despite improved rebounding. [The Bucks defensive rebounding is about average this season (17th), after being worst in the NBA most of last season.]  The Bucks are a long-armed defensive squad that likes to double team the ball and force turnovers (5th best TOV% in the league), but they’re also on the “soft” side — most of whatever toughness they have is defined by Antetokounmpo. The roster constants during Kidd’s tenure have been Giannis and Middleton, and Henson, each of whom carries some semblance of a “good defender” reputation despite the results. Parker’s return isn’t likely to help, the D end of the court often becoming his personal Land of the Lost when he’s been able to play.

A common refrain since coaching change is that the Bucks “inexplicably awful” defense — as ever-intrepid NBA.com writer David Aldridge described it — ultimately cost Kidd his job. But Horst hasn’t offered up the D in explanation, and did not do so again in a one-on-one interview with Aldridge. The fewer the details the better for the Bucks front office these days. And the young GM (he’s 34) said he loves the Bucks roster, “loves our young core,” so no recognition yet – publicly – of any need to make roster changes.

At the initial press conference, Horst did explain that the firing decision was made “relatively quickly” and wasn’t “premeditated” and it came off as an “I’m in charge and I’ve made a decision” sort of thing. There was no careful evaluation done, other than to say evaluations are “ongoing” within the long-term goal of winning a championship. It’s great to set goals, but today the “win now” attitude the Bucks are trying to instill in their culture reads more like impatience, and the abrupt, mid-season firing didn’t cast the Bucks in the more flattering lights of league-wide media perception. There was a lot of that last week.

Yes, it has been tedious and irritating. On the home front, fans became distressed back in December after the Bucks lost twice in five games to a suddenly hot Bulls team. The #FireKidd online movement has simmered right along on the boiler plates of Bucks Brew-town diehards — but theirs was always a brew better-served in summer, after the Bucks had evaluated their roster with a healthy Parker in the fold. 

Parker’s impending return made the timing of the firing questionable at best, and a little weird. This led to speculation about whether or not and Kidd and Parker were speaking. Questions about the struggles of Bucks ownership were raised. The easy speculation about who believed they should be in charge of player personnel decisions, Kidd or Horst, was a given. And so it went as the mid-season mess made in Milwaukee rolled on through the week. The #FireKidd brand might have been a half-way decent summer ale, but it’s many parts too bitter for January.

Bledsoe (at left) slumped in January, shooting 37% overall and 22% from three in the 7 games Jan. 8-20. The coaching change hasn’t stopped the slump, and Bledsoe left the Sixers game Jan. 29 after playing just three minutes and did not return. The Bucks reported that he’s been playing on a sore left ankle and is not expected to play Thursday against the T-Wolves. Image license: Standard noncommercial use.

Lost in all this has been Eric Bledsoe‘s recent shooting slump — 37% and 23% from 3-point-land in the 7 games Jan. 8-20. The Bucks were 2-5 in those games (see full stat line below). In the Miami and Philly losses in the days before Kidd was sacked, Bledsoe shot a combined 7 for 31 from the floor (22.5%) and missed 11 of 12 from 3-point land. Bledsoe was more often than not a victim of his own bad decision-making, not Kidd’s coaching. He was as sluggish as the rest of team against the Heat. And his shot wasn’t falling.

Were the big expectations that arrived in Milwaukee last fall when the Bucks traded center Greg Monroe for Bledsoe overblown? Horst isn’t going there.

Will there be some nod from the Bucks front office that Monroe’s replacements (Henson and Maker) have been helpless against the likes of Embiid, Miami’s Hassan Whiteside and Toronto’s Jonas Valanciunas? Not so far, with the trade deadline fast approaching and the Bucks needing help inside.

Instead, Horst got into it with Kidd and, well, here we are. Jon Horst is in charge. He loves the Bucks roster and its young core. Joe Prunty is interim head coach. And the Bucks have feasted on lottery teams and the Embiid-less Sixers for eight days.

Bledsoe’s slump dragged on after Kidd was gone (he’s shooting 33% overall and 20% from three in the last six games), and his scoring dipped to 12.6 ppg. Against the Sixers in Milwaukee Monday, Bledsoe played three minutes and left the game for good. The Bucks reported that he’d been playing on a sore left ankle and is not expected to play Thursday in Minnesota.

________________________

After the Bucks on Sunday beat the Bulls for the first time in three tries, Giannis offered at least implicit support for Kidd when asked how the team was responding.

”I see that guys are playing harder. Some guys – I don’t know what they’re thinking in their heads. Maybe (they were) not OK with what happened. I just see guys playing hard.” — Giannis Antetokounmpo

Khris Middleton had a different take, and talked about how the Bucks were “a little bit looser” and “much more relaxed” playing for coach Prunty; and how teams “usually take on the personality of their coach.” He also praised Prunty’s “side-to-side” passing offense in the wake of Kidd’s preference to isolate mismatches and have the team “playing off one match-up”.

It’s the schedule, Khris. 

Coach Kidd, too, would doubtlessly agree that the Bucks latest opponents were more relaxing than Toronto was in two January meetings, or Miami on Jan. 17.  The Miami game was the Bucks 13th game in 23 days, the Bucks toughest, most unforgiving stretch of the season — three back-to-backs and 11 of the 13 opponents now holding playoff spots. Over the final 10 games of the stretch, they had no more than a single off-day between the games.

But the Bucks won 6 and lost 7, beating the Wizards twice on the second nights of back-to-back games. They lost twice to the Raptors and twice to the Heat, but beat Minnesota and OKC back-to-back, no easy task. They split with Indiana. In the 13th game, the Bucks were visibly exhausted against the Heat, as Giannis missed 7 free throws and Bledsoe shot 2 for 13 in the 106-101 loss.

They didn’t make it through unscathed. When it was over, Giannis sat out the next two games to relieve soreness in his right knee, a recurring problem that forced him to miss two games earlier this season and summer international play with Team Greece. Malcolm Brogdon also missed the game in Philly, and two more since, with a calf injury. Bledsoe was playing on a bum left ankle, and isn’t expected to play against the T-wolves Thursday. And Jason Kidd lost his job.

The scheduling reality and the mid-season wear on tear on the team beg the “what if” question. A win here, a win there, a timely extra day off — would Horst and Kidd have had a problem? Should they have had a problem as it stood, the Bucks record at 23-22, given the grueling schedule?

Contrast all that with the three-day break the Bucks enjoyed after beating the Suns the day Kidd was fired. They were able to rest and recharge, to recuperate Giannis’ aching knee and other team ailments; and Prunty had plenty of time to prepare the team for the 3-games-in-4 days stretch against lesser teams of the East. The Bucks have a two-day break this week before meeting the T-Wolves in Minneapolis Thursday.

What a difference the schedule makes: A four game win streak built on the bottom feeders of the East, then five more lottery-bound opponents before the All-Star Break Feb. 16, and 7 off-days in two weeks (Feb. 2-15). 

The Bucks are 27-22 and in 6th place in the East as of this writing. They remain on track, maybe not to win 50 games, but to at least challenge for the No. 3 or No. 4 spot in the East and fulfill their goal of winning a first round playoff series, something Bucks teams have done only twice in the last three decades. Jabari Parker is due back on Friday, right on schedule.

Funny, it’s pretty much the same situation they Bucks were in when they fired Kidd, give or take a few wins against the patsies of the East.

###

Who the heck is Jon Horst?

  • Excellent feature 6/18/17 on Jon Horst in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: -https://www.jsonline.com/story/sports/nba/bucks/2017/06/18/who-new-bucks-gm-jon-horst/406803001/
  • Brewhoop on the weird process of Horst’s hiring: https://www.brewhoop.com/2017/6/16/15815804/report-milwaukee-bucks-closing-in-on-hiring-jon-horst-as-new-gm
  • NBA.com on Justin Zanik, the GM candidate the Bucks owners couldn’t agree to hire: http://www.nba.com/bucks/release/bucks-name-justin-zanik-assistant-general-manager

Bledsoe stats per 36 minutes in 7 games Jan. 8-20. The Bucks fired Jason Kidd Jan. 22. 

PtsPer36 FG FGA FG% 3P 3P% FT FT% REB AST STL BLK TOV PF BIER100
16.8 6.2 16.8 37% 1.4 23% 2.88 82% 3.2 3.8 3.4 0.6 3.2 3.5 0.115

Notes: The 3.4 steals per 36 are great, the 3.2 turnovers normal for Bledsoe, but he’s had some awful shooting games in the last seven before the Suns game Jan. 22. The Bucks posted a 2-5 record in those games.  A BIER100 of 0.115 is a very low impact and efficiency rating — well below average for a shooting guard (the SG median last season was 3.4). It’s tough to beat good teams when your star guard is suddenly playing like a replacement player or worse. Bledsoe BIER rating was about double the BIER median (6.74) at the midway point of the season (game 41), so his numbers have fallen off a cliff this month. 

Source: https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/bledser01/gamelog/2018

The Bucks sign Plumlee #3 and it may have no bearing on anything else whatsoever (such as Andrew Bogut)

Well, he’s not a client of agent Jeff Schwartz, at least not according to this updated list of Schwartz clients, which includes recent addition DeAndre Jordan and still includes Jason Kidd. The Bucks coach has made roster moves to acquire Schwartz clients before (Michael Carter-Williams, Tyler Ennis, Rashad Vaughn, Mirza Teletovic), so one couldn’t help but wonder whether Schwartz was behind the Bucks signing of Marshall Plumlee to a two-way contract earlier this week. But there appears to be no Schwartz connection this time.

And the Plumlee signing doesn’t seem to have much to do with Andrew Bogut and the will-they or won’t-they talk about adding the onetime Buck All-Pro center to the roster for the stretch run and the playoffs (assuming no catastrophic collapse). The rumor mill is churning but neither the Bucks nor Bogut have said anything to indicate his return to Milwaukee is a real possibility. This is, after all, Marshall Plumlee the Bucks just signed, not Tyson Chandler, which the Knicks highlights below from last season prove inconclusively.

The look on Phil Jackson‘s face after Plumlee hits that old school Dave DeBusschere style 18-foot set shot says it all. There’s no denying Marshall Plumlee looks just like a Plumlee. At first glance, the Bucks signing of Plumlee #3, did seem to suggest that Kidd wasn’t too interested in Bogut; or that Bogues didn’t think a move to Milwaukee in the dead of winter to play for Kidd and his big men coach Greg Foster (with help from notorious Bogut antagonist Kevin Garnett as consultant), was such a bright idea. But timing isn’t everything.

Jan. 15, the day the Bucks signed Plumlee, was the last day teams could sign players to two-way contracts, a new arrangement this season where a player can play up to 45 days in the NBA (one-fourth of the season) at a pro-rated NBA minimum salary ($1.3 million in Plumlee’s case) and the rest of his time in the G-league. (Source: Article II, Section 11 (f) of NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement, “Two-way Contracts”, pp: 49-56).

With half the season gone, the most Plumlee can earn in NBA salary is $328,000, but whatever he makes it will not count toward Team Salary (pg. 192 of the CBA). Two-way players are not included in the roster while they are with a G-league team and are not eligible for the playoffs unless their deal is converted to a regular NBA contract. The Bucks have not converted any of this season’s two-way players (Gary Payton III, Joel Bolomboy, Xavier Munford).

No team salary hit, no roster spot, no playoff eligibility — hardly the stuff of great meaning in the context of Andrew Bogut and the Bucks, who need all the help they can get in the middle.  This much was painfully obvious Jan. 5 when Raptors center Jonas Valanciunas humbled the Bucks big men with 20 points and 9 rebounds in the 3rd quarter as the Raptors blew the Bucks out of their own building. The destruction was ruthless and complete. Bucks centers John Henson and Thon Maker responded with 0 points, one rebound and 5 fouls in the quarter.

In a fit of perfect timing, the Lakers waived Bogut the very next dayIt’s not inconceivable that the Lakers brass caught the overnight Bucks-Raptors highlights and thought they might as well do the Bucks and Bogut a favor by releasing AB to play out his swan song with the team that drafted him.

Yet no one has confirmed since then that the Bucks are actually interested, only that the Bucks had “thoroughly discussed the pros and cons of signing Bogut.” This came from a routinely unreliable Bucks beat writer down in Racine who quoted no sources for the record and could not get official comment from the office of Bucks GM Jon Horst, who’s not exactly unavailable to media.

The Bucks should want Bogues back, if only to entertain the fans before he leaves the NBA for good, which will happen in the near future. Bogut was the Bucks No. 1 overall draft pick in 2005, the heart and soul of the “Fear the Deer” team in 2010, the Bucks only All-Pro in 12 seasons 2005 to 2016, and the founder of the fan section that still rocks the Bradley Center. There’s almost too much symmetry given the Bucks screaming need for HELP in the paint.

The Bucks defense has been among the worst in the league this season, 25th entering last night’s (Jan. 17) Miami game.

Western Conference fans and media may not know it, but in the East, dinosaur centers yet walk the earth.

The Heat’s Hassan Whiteside has become a more recent opposing-center-dominates-our-guys problem. Whiteside had a strong game (15 pts, 10 rebs, 4 blocks) against the Bucks Jan. 14 in a blowout win by the Heat, and was downright dominant in the rematch in Milwaukee a few says later (Jan. 17), won by the Heat 106-101. Defensively, he blocked six shots, grabbed 12 rebounds and kept Giannis Antetokounmpo and guards Malcolm Brogdon and Eric Bledsoe out of the lane (the Bucks starting guards shot a combined 4 for 20 from the field, while Giannis was 6 for 15).

Offensively, Whiteside scored 27 pts while his backup, Kelly Olynyk, added 15 — 42 combined points, all too much for the Bucks on a night when Bledsoe was even more chaotic than usual.  Miami has won 8 out 9 games and moved up to 4th in the East, which means they’re another possible playoff match-up for the Bucks, and the Bucks have two more Heat games on the regular season schedule.

42 points from the center spot is almost unheard of in today’s NBA. The last time it happened was Nov. 15 when the Sixers Joel Embiid dropped a career high 46 on the Lakers. Bogut played 20 minutes in that game and actually slowed Embiid down, blocking his shot once and grabbing 10 rebounds to help the Lakers take the lead after 3 quarters. Embiid poured in 19 pts in the 4th, most of them (14) after Bogut checked out of the game with 7 mins to play. When he was on the court, the battle between the young star and the aging defender was real enough, and both players delivered in a wildly entertaining game. Lakers coach Luke Walton benched starter Brook Lopez in the second half. Embiid ruled the day, but Bogut had proven he wasn’t finished yet in the NBA.

The Bucks have yet to see Embiid and the Sixers this season (4 games coming up); and while there’s only one game left on the schedule against Boston, the Bucks might see the Celtics and centers Al Horford and Aron Baynes, who gave Henson and Maker trouble early this season, in the playoffs.

Kareem Abdul Jabbar was in attendance for the Heat game as part of the Bucks ongoing 50th Anniversary celebration, and, right on cue, he talked about the Bucks lack of “inside defense”. The centers may be “dinosaurs” in the new NBA, yet you need them to beat the teams that feature good big men. This makes no sense, but the basketball universe is howling now for Jason Kidd and Jon Horst to make a move, which signing Plumlee is not.

As for Bogut, there’s no news but speculation, even so far as a suggestion in the Daily Telegraph of Australia that one option is for him to return home and work for the Sidney Kings, the Aussie pro team he supported as a kid. Bogut negotiated to play for Sidney during the NBA lockout 2011-12 but those plans fell apart over insurance issues, the Daily Telegraph reports.

Bogut would probably prefer to return to the Warriors to relive a championship run but, barring injuries to the Warriors versatile crew of big men, he may no longer be a good fit.  The Warriors don’t have the problems the Bucks, Cavs or other potential Bogut suitors have. Realistically, it’s probably too soon to expect a move for Bogut, whose destination may not be decided until after the trading deadline Feb. 8 or All-Star break Feb. 16-18. The last day to sign playoff eligible players off the waiver wire is March 1.

The Bucks have just finished their toughest stretch of the season — 13 games in 23 days, of which the Bucks lost 8, won 5 and fell to 7th in the East with a 23-21 record. If the playoffs began today, the Bucks would get a rematch of last year’s 6-game series against the Raptors. But there’s no reason to panic yet — a much softer schedule lies ahead in the 13 games between now and the All-Star break Feb. 16.

In case of fire, call Bogut.

Sourcerole

  • The NBA collective Bargaining agreement is a supremely over-written document but it can be a fairly interesting read, really: http://3c90sm37lsaecdwtr32v9qof.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/2017-NBA-NBPA-Collective-Bargaining-Agreement.pdf
  • Gamebooks and misc. stats: NBA.com and basketball-reference.com
  • Key NBA dates, 2017-18 season: http://www.nba.com/key-dates#/
  • the Australian news service: news.com.au

Now we can talk “Best Team Ever” – Durant signing unites MVPs for the 2nd time in NBA history (no, the 1st time did not involve Lebron)

The only available precedent says that Kevin Durant and Steph Curry’s Warriors will win the 2017 title – going away.

When I saw the text that said Kevin Durant had made the big decision and was leaving his OKC Thunder to sign with Golden State — the team he couldn’t beat in the Western Conference Finals — my immediate response was two words: “Not Fair”.  As the week progressed and I read and heard the mountain of spin piling up about Durant’s move, it doesn’t strike me any differently. It’s simply not fair competition for two NBA Most Valuable Players — in the prime of their careers — to join forces on an NBA Finals team.

The last and only time this happened, the impact on the psyche of the league was devastating. Most teams rolled over in submission, with the notable exceptions of one team that became the Super Team’s nemesis and another that put up a good fight in the playoffs but still lost their series 4 games to one. It was the only loss the Super Team suffered in the playoffs.

The team in question is the 1982-83 Philadelphia 76ers, who after losing in the 1982 NBA Finals were able to bring together free agent center Moses Malone, the Chairman of the Boards, at age 27 the baddest player in the league and the reigning MVP, and Julius “Dr. J” Erving, who had won the MVP one season prior (1981). Until this week’s uniting of Durant, the 2014 MVP, with Stephen Curry, the reigning MVP for two seasons, the Moses and Dr. J pairing was the only time in NBA history that a team had been able to suit up two concurrent MVPs to lay waste to the rest of the league.

The late Malone (who passed away last fall at age 60) in 1982 was the first reigning MVP to leave his team in free agency; Lebron James in 2010 was the second. Though NBA fandom and the media are wired to talk about Lebron (the Lebron context being where the league lived until Durant signed with the Warriors), the similarities between the Lebron signing and the Durant signing don’t go very far. When Lebron joined the Heat, Dwyane Wade was in his prime, had made 1st team All-Pro for the 2nd year in a row, and had been in the running for 2009 MVP (Lebron won that one, too) — but Wade’s Heat were nothing resembling title contenders until Lebron came along. And there’s the rub. The Warriors were within a Kyrie Irving 3-pointer of winning a 2nd title last month. One shot. And now they have Durant.

Indeed, let’s set aside the analytics and graphs and charts and apples to oranges comparisons and take a look at what happened the first time two concurrent MVPs suited up on the same team.

Moses leads the Sixers to the Promised Land

Moses Malone and Dr. J at the outset of the 1982-83 season.

The Sixers in the early 1980s had in many ways adopted the cool intellectualism and quiet intensity of their star, Dr. J. The ball moved freely on offense, the shot selection was smart, the Philly fast break was a work of art featuring the graceful glide of the Doctor in mid-air, and the Sixers took pride in their plus 50% shooting, which in 1982 was 2nd best in the league behind the run-and-gun Denver Nuggets. If Darryl “Chocolate Thunder” Dawkins had seemed out of place as the Sixers starting center, it’s because he was. Dawkins was traded to New Jersey in the days before the Sixers signed Malone. Moses was the ultimate fit for the team’s biggest needs: Better inside scoring and rebounding, the boards having been the Sixers trouble spot for years. Moses, one of the most prolific rebounders in NBA history, quickly put an end to that problem. He also had the feet of a ballet dancer, as Bucks radio voice Eddie Doucette described them, and a dump truck-full of quick moves around the basket. Erving wisely and tacitly agreed to allow the natural flow of the offense through Malone, and the Sixers quickly found their new chemistry.

Philly won 9 of their first 10 games, then put together win streaks of 14 and 10 games, powering their way to a 50-7 record and a big lead over Larry Bird‘s Celtics in the Atlantic Division, and an even bigger lead over the Central Division champs, the Bucks. When the Sixers record reached 49-7, coach Billy Cunningham began resting his stars, beginning with All-Star, All-Defensive forward Bobby Jones and 33-year-old Dr. J, who sat out ten games during the season. While taking it easy down the stretch, the Sixers went 16-10 to finish 65-17.

At season’s end, with his team healthy and well-rested, Moses laid down his famous “Fo’ Fo’ Fo'” declaration — meaning the Sixers would sweep all three of their playoff series’ and become the only team in NBA history to romp undefeated through the playoffs. Malone wasn’t bragging when he said it, and his team came oh-so-close to accomplishing Fo’ Fo’ Fo. They went 12-1 in the playoffs, the lone loss coming in the East finals to a Milwaukee Bucks team flying high and pushing the pace after sweeping Bird’s Celtics in the semis (and making it look easy).

The Marques Johnson-led Bucks had put up a terrific fight, losing game 1 in overtime and dropping Game 2 in the final minute.  Every game in the series but Game 5 was close, every minute a bitter contest. The Finals against the “Showtime” Lakers were a different story: Moses dominated Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson in the paint (the Lakers defensive plan relied on Magic dropping down to help on Malone), averaging 26 pts and 18 rebs a game in the series. The Sixers blew the Lakers out in Game 3, the first game played in LA,  and the sweep was on. Fo’ Fi’ Fo’.

Moses won the 1983 MVP, his 3rd in five years, and his 4th rebounding title in 5 years. Moses and Dr. J were named 1st Team All-Pro. Malone, Jones and point guard Maurice Cheeks, one of the great thieves of NBA history (No. 5 all-time steals) were voted 1st Team All-Defense.  Jones won the 6th Man of the Year award. Four Sixers — Moses, the Doctor, Cheeks and shooting guard Andrew Toney — made the 1983 All-Star team. There was no room for Jones, apparently, who had made the All-Star teams of 1981 and ’82.

Did I mention that the Sixers swept the “Showtime” Lakers in the NBA Finals? The Lakers featured four Hall of Famers (Kareem, Magic, Wilkes and McAdoo), all-star guard Norm Nixon and the great defender, Michael Cooper.

Malone shoots over Alton Lister in the 1983 Eastern Conference finals as the Bucks move in to triple-team him.

The 1983 Sixers were declared the best team in history by nearly everyone who saw them play with the exception of Celtics and Lakers fans whose DNA is engineered to deny the glory of others; and, ironically, their coach, who thought his 1967 Sixers team was better and even wrote a book about it (Season of the 76ers,  2002). The Moses – Dr. J – Bobby Jones – Cheeks – Toney five was, for one dominant season, the best five to play together since the days of the battles between Bill Russell‘s Celtics and Wilt Chamberlain‘s Sixers (1966-68).  That homage to the 1960s Glory Days said, the brilliance of the players and the rising fortunes of the league during “the renaissance” of the 1980s — yes, even before Jordan and Barkley — should not be underappreciated. The game had evolved for the better and entered its Golden Age.

The Warriors of today have a lot in common with that Sixer team. No, they don’t have Moses Malone in the prime of his career — but there’s more than enough to suggest that the extreme success of the 1983 Sixers gives NBA fans a pretty good indication of what’s in store for the league in 2016-17. The Warriors, not the champs in Cleveland, are now the team to beat.

The obvious and irresistible parallels

They seem very happy. Warriors coach Steve Kerr, Durant and GM Bob Myers. 7/07/2016

Both the 1982 Sixers and the 2016 Warriors made the NBA Finals and lost. In both instances, the losing team was coming off of an intense 7-game struggle in the conference finals, while the winner of the championship series had strolled through their conference playoffs unmolested.

A tired, beat-up Sixers team faced a Lakers team that hadn’t lost a game in the West playoffs and waited an unprecedented 12 days for their opponent (still the record for longest Finals layoff). Like the 2016 Warriors, the 1982 Sixers had barely made it out of their conference playoffs. In the semi-finals they were pushed to six games by a short-handed but star-studded Bucks team. In the conference finals, the Sixers became the first team to win a Game 7 on the parquet floor of Boston Garden.

After beating the Celtics, the 1982 Finals were “anti-climactic”, Dr. J would write in his autobiography years later. In Game 1 the well-rested Lakers played just seven players and stole home court advantage from the Sixers, then ran away with the title in six games. The weary, beaten Sixers were satisfied to have had their revenge in Boston (they lost the 1981 East finals in a Game 7 in the Garden) but knew they had to make a change if Dr. J (and Bobby Jones) were ever going to win the NBA Championship that had eluded him since the ABA-NBA merger in 1976. Doc was running out of time, and there was an even chance the Bucks or Celtics might prevent the Sixers from reaching the Finals again. Enter Moses Malone.

It can’t be said that the 2016 NBA Finals were anti-climactic for the Warriors, but they were battered and bruised after coming back from a 3 to 1 deficit to beat Durant’s OKC Thunder in a 7-game West finals series. Riding on the energy from that series, the Warriors ran out to a 3-1 series lead against Lebron’s Cavs, which meant they had won six of seven games against the Thunder and Cavs.  A great achievement, but they were running on fumes, and it showed in games 5, 6 and 7, especially in the play of Steph Curry. Lebron James played a Finals for the ages, the Cavs swept the last three games and the title was theirs. Enter Kevin Durant.

The 4 All-Pro starting lineup

Kevin Durant isn’t Moses Malone — he’s not a player on quite that transformative Moses level.  But as some of the spin has spun this week — with an eye toward making a case that competition has not been compromised by Durant’s move — KD’s already historic achievements have been somewhat downplayed.

Durant is just the 4th small forward in the 61-year history of the MVP award to win the award. The other three are Dr. J, Larry Bird and Lebron James.

Durant in 2014 swiped the MVP crown Lebron James had worn for four out of five seasons. Steph Curry won the next two MVPs, so today’s Warriors players have held the crown three straight seasons.

Durant’s career impact and efficiency (BIER) numbers, while not as phenomenal as Bird or Lebron’s, are comparable to Dr. J’s NBA stats, and to the numbers put up by Marques Johnson, the sadly under-recognized forward who led the Bucks against the Sixers in the early 1980s. In this top shelf “box score impact” statistical context, the sixth small forward in league history worth mentioning is 1980s scoring machine Adrian Dantley. There are many others with legendary reputations and Hall of Fame recognition, but they didn’t have the statistical impact, or, (in Kawhi Leonard’s case) haven’t yet played long enough.

Kevin Durant after nine seasons in the NBA is simply one of the best small forwards ever to play the game. KD’s already accomplished Hall of Fame-worthy honors and stats. He’s got an MVP award; and he’s going to Golden State at age 27, in the prime of his career. The irresistible parallel here is that Moses Malone was 27 when he signed with the Sixers.

Durant joins Curry, the MVP, and two All-Pro teammates, big forward Draymond Green (2nd Team All-Pro) and shooting guard Klay Thompson (3rd Team). Since the ABA-NBA merger, no team has had three All-Pros in one season, so what Curry, Green and Thompson accomplished last season was unprecedented — and let’s not forget the 73 regular season wins.

Durant was 2nd Team All-Pro last season, behind Lebron James and Kawhi Leonard at forward. Green was the other forward honored on the 2nd Team. Let’s pause there.

3rd Team All-Pro honors didn’t exist until 1989, so for 40 seasons the NBA honored ten guys, which made sense when there were only 8 to 10 teams in the 1950s up through 1967. The NBA merged with the ABA in 1976, so for 31 years (1976-2016), no team has boasted 3 of the first 10 honored All-Pros. The 2016-17 Warriors will be the first.

No, it’s not fair

Lebron, Wade and Chris Bosh were All-Pros in the same year only once – in 2007, when Lebron was in Cleveland, Wade in Miami and Bosh in Toronto. Bosh was never an All-Pro during the Heat’s four-year run.

Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman were never All-Pros in the same season, though they would have been in 1995 had Jordan played the full season. Rodman was still a San Antonio Spur at that point. The 1996 Bulls, the 72-win team, best team ever?  The dilution of the talent due to expansion and the lack of great competition in the mid-1990s makes it impossible to say. Jordan’s Bulls were undoubtedly the NBC Network’s greatest champion.

Both the Celtics and Sixers started four All-Star players during the Bill RussellWilt Chamberlain battles 1966-1968, but because both teams played in the Eastern Conference, neither team ever got four All-Star spots in a season. Combined, there were five players from “The Great Rivalry” voted to the 1967 All-Pro team.

Bird and Magic.

3rd Team All-Pro honors did not yet exist when the 1980s Super Teams battled for supremacy, so the All-Pro teams are a poor measuring stick for the greatness of the Sixers, Lakers and Celtics teams of the Golden Age. It gets messy. No team had three in one year. Only the Sixers and Lakers had two. From 1983-1986, Larry Bird was the only Celtic to be named All-Pro (he won three MVPs in that time, and the Celtics won two titles).  But the Celtics had four All-Stars who were All-Pro at one time or another, and a former MVP – future Hall of Famer (Bill Walton) coming off the bench in 1986. The “Showtime” Lakers had similar talent — four players who made All-Star teams from 1980 through 1985, and a former MVP – future Hall of Famer (Bob McAdoo) coming off the bench.

And now we’re back to the 1983 Sixers and their four All-Stars, plus 1982 All-Star Bobby Jones, the 1983 6th Man of the Year — the team that swept the Showtime Lakers in the Finals. That’s good enough to settle the Best Team Ever debate, especially in light of Moses’ domination of Kareem and Magic in the Finals, and of the entire NBA that season.

Those Super Teams were loaded with talent almost beyond comprehension in today’s NBA — until this week. The Warriors bringing three current All-Pros together is unprecedented. Now add to the mix 3rd Team All-Pro All-Star and Olympian Klay Thompson, and veteran Sixth Man Andre Iguodala — an All-Star in 2012, All-Defensive in 2014 and the 2015 NBA Finals MVP …

As currently constructed, the Warriors are as close as the Super Teams of the 1980s were to the Sixers five-star team. It’s just not fair to the rest of the league; and It’s very small solace for the opposition that, at age 32, Iguodala’s All-Star days seem to be behind him, or that the Warriors had to let go of all four of their big men to sign Durant. They’ve already replaced two of them, and this seems like a good time to point out that Durant is listed at 6’9″ but is taller than that, and rebounds on the defensive end like the average NBA center.

And here’s the kicker: As we look to the Super Teams of the 1980s for proper perspective and precedent for the 2017 Warriors, we find that there is no record of failure in that precedence — all three of the 1980s Super Teams won the championships they set out to win, with the 1983 Sixers being the team most dominant and decorated, but sometimes forgotten in the shadow of the Magic and Bird story.

No record of failure. It wasn’t fair in 1983 when the Sixers signed Moses to win a title with 33-year-old Dr. J. It’s not fair now. Kevin Durant is just 27 years old, and signed on with the Warriors for two years. Steph Curry is 27. Draymond Green and Klay Thompson are 25, and under contract for four and three years respectively. The 1983 Sixers slowed down due to age after winning the title. The 2017 Warriors won’t be slowing down any time soon.

Think about that.  It’s not fair, but enjoy this team while it lasts.