With yesterday’s news, the off-season is complete. Overall, Horst should be applauded. A year ago, the Bucks were one of the oldest teams in the NBA. They addressed that and added young but veteran experience.
Backcourt
The Management stated they wanted better shooting and playmaking in the backcourt. The additions of Holiday, Augustine, Forbes, and Craig should be better than Bledsoe, Matthews, Hill, and Brown, but how much is the key. The Bucks retain Divincenzo and Connaughton for the rotation, with the expectation that Divincenzo takes an additional step as a full time starter. Defensively the Bucks need to be better, especially come playoff time. Between Holiday, Divincenzo, Connaughton, and Craig, Budenholzer has a lot of varying skill sets. Connaughton will be useful in small ball lineups wit’s his leaping and deep shooting ability and headsy play. If Divincenzo struggles offensively, they have playmakers in Augustine and Forbes to bring shooting and playmaking off the bench. It will be Budenholzer’s challenge to keep this group humming with only so many minutes to use.
Frontcourt
The days of thinking of Middleton as a G are generally over. He’s a forward now, with 6 Gs vying for playing time. In Middleton and Giannis, there’s 50 ppg, almost half their offense. Even though Middleton is coming off a career year, he needs one more level for this team to be a more formidable playoff foe. Consistency in his scoring with less turnovers is a must for Middleton to get to one more level. With all the increased and improved ball handling, he no longer needs to handle the ball at all- now he can focus on iso and spot up opportunities. Giannis’ improvement must be in his shooting and his consistency- and all of it is in his head. The rest is at an All-Time great level, and enough to be a champion. Portis has been added as a better athletic option than Robin Lopez backing up his brother. And this truly is DJW’s put up or shut up season. The Bucks were very reliant on Brook Lopez as a part of their scoring, but I see that diminishing this year. The Bucks have remade this roster with more reliance on Gs who drive and hit 3s, and with that will be less opportunities for Lopez. He needs to improve his efficiency to still produce for this team.
Overall: this team is going to be using an abbreviated camp to integrate a completely revamped bench and one new starter. They only get 72 games to figure it out. The Eastern Conference returns a Miami Heat team that took up permanent residence in the Bucks’ head a year ago, an improved Brooklyn Nets team with real star power, a Boston team with an emerging superstar, a Philly team that was supposed to challenge Milwaukee a year ago now with a better coach, and an Atlanta team with a young but talented roster. I suspect the early returns will be mixed. But this team has the talent and roster to win it all if they stay focused. No excuses, now- Giannis is committed, Holiday is likely to extend, and they have what they need on paper.
Belief has a lot to do with results when you’re going from contender to Champion. It may take some time, but this much younger and seemingly more talented team has a shot to raise a long awaited banner at the conclusion of this season. Anything less needs to be viewed as a disappointment.
