OnTheBlack

IDK about that, but it certainly didn't help. The silver living is that he'll think it is either way and come back better. This really sucks, but I won't lose sight of what we have in him. Hopefully years from now everyone's talking about this series changed his career. Absolutely. We have the most important player in NBA on OUR team IN Milwaukee and he wants to stay here. And he's not gonna go join a super team in order to make it easier, I'll bet money on that right now. Just like that, Giannis going back to what he does. Back to a 1 point game...

Lopez...giving us at least a short stay of execution...

It's ALL on Giannis? If he goes 10 for 10 they're still losing.

This is going to be a guy shot for Giannis that lasts for 12 full months. No doubt about that. I'd throw Snell in there at this point for a short stretch. See if his length can cause some problems and maybe he can knock down a shot or two. I don't really see what you have to lose. Desperate, sure, but what the hell are we right now? Of course there's still time to get back in this and it'd be impressive as hell if they do, but I just can't see it.

I'll be shocked if they can get it together here.... From 15 up with a few minutes left in the 3rd to down 8 halfway through the 4th.

It's too much to put this on Bledsoe. Even Hill took and made a bad shot. This is a team collapse.

Giannis needs to knock down BOTH here...

Almost no movement on offense either. Waiting for someone to get into the lane and kick it out and that's it. And you KNEW when the Refs were giving us the 50/50 calls in the 1st half, they'd give them to the Raptors in the 2nd half. We'll see what Hill can do in order to calm us down here.

All year the Bucks have done just that. But you could see it. When they were up 14-15 and they had the advantage in numbers of a mis-match, instead of attacking, they're settling. It's just so frustrating. It's not how they've played all year long. We need someone to step up here.

Unreal. Up 14 with 4 minutes to go...asked my buddy what the lead would be going into the 4th. He said 8. I said if it's 8, they'll end up losing. This has been an awful stretch of BB with the season on the line....

Hard to complain about the refs tonight. They missed a pretty obvious double dribble by Hill and you've got 4 and 3 foulds on Ibaka and Gasol. If VanVleet stops hitting, we're fine. The ONE thing I don't get is their inability to score in the paint. Brogdon and Hill are doing it, but Bledsoe and Giannis are rushing shots or passing them up. They just need to go up strong and they're good.

So much of what you say has almost ZERO basis in reality it's almost comical. He's really been a "non-factor?" Un-real.

Agreed.

And so is Toronto. They're hitting at nearly an identical rate. VanVleets been hitting these without much pressure. Second half, close game, I just don't think he's going to keep hitting. And if he does, there's really not much you can do. The only issue I have is that there have been a couple of long rebounds that have come off to Bled and he hasn't pushed it. That and it feels like the Bucks are to tentative going up for shots around the rim. Giannis needs to explode up, ball on both hands and just power it in there on that play he threw it into the back court. The Bucks win when they have a big rebounding disparity. I'm feeling good about the Bucks. I get why others don't, but Giannis, despite his misses isn't short arming them, the ball movement is better and Giannis isn't taking the ball from the top of the key AS MUCH.

I really don't think you understand this trade or how the NBA CBA Works. 18.34 mil opened for this offseason. Expirings which bad teams take on readily for 1sts. Nothing new. Plenty of teams would have taken those 2 for a 1st this offseason as well. And it would be 7mil if he simply didn't sign Snell when we had Brog and Brown who are the same guy. First of all, they weren't expiring contracts. So no, plenty of teams would NOT have taken a late 1st round pick to take on 20 million dollars. But it's even more important to US to shed that 20 million dollars. But since they weren't expiring contracts, you're starting off not understanding why that trade was impressive. We traded two players we had no use for and in doing so we shaved ~20 million off our salary cap for the next two years. Most importantly, the year in which we had 4 out of our 5 starters due to be FA's. Many people looked at both as being nearly untradable. You seem to believe somehow this was a trade that "many teams" would have done for a late 1st round pick. It's almost laughable. I guess it should be easy then to trade Snell since he's a better player and better fit for this team than either Henson or Delladova...in which case, you can't really use him as a bad signing for that reason either. Because if you mistakenly believe that teams are lining up to take two bad contracts off a teams hands for a late 1st round pick while giving back a proven, veteran PG to fill that teams biggest need, then trading Snell should be a breeze, right? So how bad of a contract can he be? Finally, Snell has turned out to be a guy who's gotten buried on our bench, but when he took over after Middleton went out, he put up a effective FG pct of .588, played outstanding perimeter defense and shot over 40 pct from 3. Signing him at the time seemed like an obvious move. Without regular playing time, his effectiveness has suffered and now it's likely he's the next "expiring" contract they'll trade away(since I guess expiring contracts mean they have multiple years left on them by your definition). Mirotic is a 16/8 playing heavy minutes for bad teams. There wasn't a market for him or a handful of 2nds wouldn't have done it. He found a team in a something is better than nothing situation. Again, you seem to have no clue what you're talking about. In 3 of the 4 years he's played, his teams have made it at least to the second round of the playoffs and he has never averaged more than 30 minutes a game. Please explain how that translates to "heavy minutes for bad teams?" That's just asinine. Second, last year his team lost in the second round to Golden State in the playoffs, a series in which he averaged nearly 16/10 and shot 43 pct from 3. Yup, just putting up big numbers on bad teams But you keep moving the goal posts. If the Bucks traded for him, that means that no other teams must have been interested, so that's not an impressive addition? What a laughable position to take. He's played in the post-season the last 3 years in the playoffs and there was quite a bit of debate about which was the best trade deadline acquisition, Mirotic, Gasol or Harris with many people favoring Mirotic. You're not even arguing facts and logic anymore, you're just dug into a position and you're going to make things up to argue otherwise. https://www.sbnation.com/2019/2/7/18215686/nikola-mirotic-trade-bucks-pelicans-stanley-johnson This was literally the very first article that came up, but it's not hard to find about 25 others who of a similar ilk who believed that the Bucks stole Mirotic. Look around, people wanted Dedmon cheap before he was in SA. That's how long that's been going on. Oh...great. And? So because at some point at some time in the past people wanted the Bucks to sign Dedmon, that diminishes his acquisitions of Lopez, Connaughton and Hill in season? This is almost like saying, "look around, people wanted the Brewers to trade for young, talented players for years, so the Yelich trade isn't a great trade, it's just a sane one." I'd ask you explain that logic, but after claiming anyone could have had Mirotic because we got him for 2nd round picks(not actually true, we got him in a 3 way trade in which we gave up a couple players as well as multiple 2nd round picks, but the details don't seem to matter much here). Steve Keim of the Arizona Cardinals did the logical simple things when he got Arians and got exec of the year and then fell off a cliff for 3 years because, simply put, he is average. Yeah, I don't know what he has to do with this discussion at all, but he drafted a all pro player, he upgraded the QB position from John Skelton to Carson Palmer, and turned the team around from 5-11 to 10-6 the following year(As well as hiring a good coach). But since the NBA and the NFL are ENTIRELY different sports and the jobs are VASTLY-VASTLY different as there's so much less room to navigate in the NBA than the NFL, this appears to be another vague argument that misses the mark yet again. You're effectively saying, "because 6 years ago a GM for an NFL team that went 5-11 to 10-6 almost directly as a result of the impact players he brought in won NFL Executive of the year for the first of two times(he'd win it again later) that means Jon Horst isn't that good because he hired his coach based on something other than him being his friend or relative. Plums, Henson, Delly, Telly, Thon over Sabonis, DJ over Collins/Allen, Vaughn over Portis, the MCW debacle, the Vasquez trade that still haunts us. BAD! You sure you don't want to throw in a "SAD," or covefe in there just to go all in on the verbiage? I have got zero clue what these moves have to do with Horst other than he still put together a team that is in the ECF's and still playing. I do think it's absurd how you go back and look at the draft, pick a bad selection and then look at guys picked later and lament how awful a decision it was, yet you also refuse to credit the previous GM with drafting a young superstar like Giannis at 15, but since former GM's or GM's from other sports have absolutely nothing to do with Jon Horst OTHER than to point out he's gotten the Bucks back on track after having to revamp the roster on the fly and doing so by building a great roster to surround Giannis. I guess you did mention DJ Wilson, but it's so hard trying to keep track of your logic, I'm not even sure I want to pull on this thread...but I guess I'll give it a little tug. So Mirotic, a guy who's been productive on 3 teams in 4 years who've made it to at least the 2nd round of the post-season isn't a good player, he's just a guy who puts up numbers on bad teams playing heavy minutes. But the two guys you've already anointed as being better than DJ Wilson....tell me, did either go to a "good team?" Or did they both go to teams who gave them "heavy minutes" right off the bat and have only managed to exceed 29 wins one time in the 4 combined years? See where your argument losses consistency? I think maybe you should take a little time to familiarize yourself with the actual details of the moves the Bucks made so you can have a better understanding of what Horst has done to clean up our cap situation while also helping this team get within two games(Which they STILL ARE) of the NBA Finals and you don't confuse expiring contracts for contracts with multiple years on them. And just one more note on that. An expiring contract is actually considered an ASSET. https://behindthebuckpass.com/2019/05/05/milwaukee-bucks-daily-general-manager-jon-horst-role-current-success/ So just quickly going back to that Delledova-Henson/1st round pick for Hill trade, we traded two players with negative value(Henson was bought out and didn't play again this season despite the fact that they owed him over 11 million this year and 10.5 next year) and Delledova was a backup who played part time on a terrible team) for a guy with positive value(George Hill) who both helped us during the season as our top backup PG and who will help us even more as he clears substantial payroll in order for us to pay our good young players. And for the privilege of saving their division rivals 20 million dollars along with giving them back a player who had significant value to us, it cost us a late 1st round draft pick in the future. Please show me all the other trades that are similar to that?

Well, he's doing everything and playing all out on both ends of the court. But I don't believe gassed. Bud just likes to keep guys fresh. And that was a mistake to take him out when Gasol got that big rebound.

Yes. So that clears a lot of cap room to retain their young core. It'd be nice to be able to bring him back, perhaps on a MLE, but I don't have any idea how that's going to play out. Even in the highly unlikely scenario that CHL wants, the Bucks to pick up Hill's option and pay him 19 million next year, it was still a great trade to get rid of Henson and Delly in favor of Hill. Most likely though, that money will be spent on Brogdon, Middleton, Mirotic and then we'll have to figure out what to do with the MLE, and how to fill in the rest of the roster. I'd imagine we'd be looking for more from Sterling Brown, DDV, DJ Wilson, all of whom are promising young players. But just for the sake of repeating myself, we have the Greek Freak and he's improving. Man....we haven't even lost this series and we have a 24 year old MEGA-star, our future is somehow diminished? I realize that's not what you said, but that's what I'm getting from others on here. And don't let recency bias fool you, Mirotic played poorly and he might have cost himself so money, but he's a VERY good player. Being able to keep our core 5-6 players together with some young role players and then letting Horst fill out the rotation looks like a pretty good recipe to me.

The difference moving forward IMO will be us, namely Giannis. But even under your assumption, Kyrie and LeBron going to NYN is not the same as LeBron and Wade in Miami. Durant's going to be 30 years old. Those three(you're forgetting Bosh who was an All-NBA player before joining) made a deeper and better team. That's not to mention that's just complete conjecture that those two are going to both go to the same team, a franchise that has been absolute garbage and will have almost no depth. Nobody knows what Durant or Kyrie are going to do. I'd be more worried that Boston adds AD and thins out some of it's "assets" in order to create an actual roster, but even if that happens, it's not supposed to be easy to win an NBA championship. I guess it comes down to this, do you believe Giannis is going to be the best player in the NBA in the coming years or not. If you don't, I get being scared. If you believe he's going to improve as I do and you have confidence in Horst AND our coaches, I don't get why you'd be less confident in this teams future?

Yeah, actually they DID clearly get "short term" cap relief. They got 20 million in cap relief as that's how much they'll save this coming off-season(actually 19 million, but close enough). And yes, getting Mirotic for Thon and some 2nd round picks was also an GREAT trade. To argue otherwise is absurd. Mirotic has had a bad series for us, but they added a 16/8 guy who performed better than that last year in the post-season for what? 2nd round picks which you can buy from other teams and Thon Maker. Yeah, that's no big deal. Oh, and clearing ~20 million in cap space for next year and adding George Hill while giving up a late 1st round pick...yeah, that's a "C" grade as well! And Bucks fans have been begging for Pat C and Lopez for years??? I guess I missed those threads, but either way, he actually signed them. He also added Bledsoe, a 1st team NBA Defender and then signed him to a team friendly deal, passed on signing Jabari Parker and was reportedly a big part of the Bucks decision to draft Brogdon. To say Horst hasn't been a brilliant GM since he's taken the job given the salary cap restraints is absolutely ludicrous. I'm curious what exactly Horst could have done that he hasn't that would make you happy? Really, the Henson/Delly/1st for Hill trade might have been one of thee best in the NBA this year and it may be the difference between being able to keep Brogdon or being forced to let him leave while also adding a veteran PG who has been a big factor in these playoffs. The guy stabilized the entire franchise when we were at a crossroads and were looking foolish. Oh yeah, and he hired Bud to coach the team. There's a reason that Horst is one of the favorites to win Executive of the year along with Ujiri and it sure isn't because he's been a "C" General Manager rather than a D-. But honestly, if you don't think dumping Henson and Delly's contracts while only having to give up a 1st AND getting back George Hill, a move that, again, got you a very good veteran PG and clears nearly 20 million off your books this off-season is a great move, this whole post was likely for nothing. That was one of the best moves in the NBA this past year alone.

C'mon man, first of all, this series is NOT over. But I get why people are giving up on this year. What I don't get is the pessimism for the future. When you have a force like Giannis, you're going to be in contention year to year. When you surround him with players like Brogdon, Middleton, as well as other shooters, I don't see why they wouldn't be back. I get what happened the last time we made it this far, but we had a coach with the ego the size of Lake Michigan and we didn't have ONE star who could even tough Giannis and those guys weren't still ascending. Nothing about Giannis has changed. Nothing about Coach Bud and this system has changed. If Fred Van-friggin-Vleet doesn't hit 10 of 12 3's the last 2 games, after barely shooting 10 pct, we're going back to Toronto to close them out. That didn't happen, but this wasn't suppose to be THE year the Bucks really took off anyway. I don't know how they'll build their roster moving forward, I don't know if they'll find a way to sign Hill to a reasonable deal or if they'll try and pick up someone like Rondo to be that backup playoff tested PG, but I do trust our GM and more importantly, in a sport where having one historically great young player means everything, I trust Giannis.

This is so ridiculous. So Durant and Kyrie are going to go to New York(a HUGE assumption) and that team is suddenly going to be able to beat the Bucks and build a "super team." You think just having Durant and Kyrie will make them a superteam? The only chance that there's going to be a better "superteam" in the NBA next year better than the GSW is if both KD and Kawhi go to the Clippers, and then even still you have a 30 year old Durant playing along side a guy in Kawhi who is constantly injured and they're in the west. Meanwhile, the guy who's improved immensely every year he's been in the league won't get any better? The young team that's making it's first deep run is now done because they're down 3-2 in the ECF's vs Toronto? And stop it with this "blueprint on how to stop Giannis." You have said it before(many-many times). Everyone knows what to do to stop Giannis, only ONE team has Kawhi and they haven't been able to "stop" anyone, they've slowed him down. This is a young team learning how to win. They'll keep their core in place. This apocalyptic crap is ridiculous. This same team with a few adjustments that are going to be necessary will be able to compete. How Giannis improves as well as some other young guys will be a determining factor. And Bledsoe is so far away from being a "bad" contract it's absurd. First team all NBA defensive player. He's 29 years old and on a team friendly contract. Kyle Lowry was choked in the post-season for years(not post-season necessarily, but deep in the post-season). And Bledsoe is younger and signed to a far more team friendly contract. The sky is not falling. We MIGHT not make it to the finals THIS season, but it's laughable to suggest that we can't win with this team moving forward. Especially given what Giannis has done every year as I said and what our GM has been able to do. You don't think there are going to be players who want to play with Giannis? We have one of the most dominant young players in the NBA. And if you'll recall, there was a similar "blueprint" on how to stop LeBron earlier in his career. But players like Giannis learn, evolve and improve. Unless of course you think this is as good as Giannis is going to get and that he's done improving and he will inexplicably get worse at the age of 24 and start to decline and our GM who's pulled off some almost miraculous trades will suddenly not be able to evaluate talent.

I don't think they were over-rated. When a team wins 60 games you aren't over-rated. This team right now does NOT look like the team we watched all season long. They came upon a team that is hitting their stride at the right time and got kicked in the teeth every time they made even a small mistake. Perhaps we peaked too soon? I will say this - I don't think either team in the East will beat GS anyway. Let's hope they learn from this and come back in October older and wiser. And lets keep in mind Toronto was not exactly Boston this year...a talented team that struggled. They won 58 games while resting Kawhi a whole lot and adding a stud in Gasol. Now we added Mirotic, but he's been a huge liability this off-season.

I was actually more confident because I don't think Giannis was part of that group that may have believed that. I'm still going so grateful we have a monster like Giannis in Milwaukee and at least as of now, happy to be here and happy to stay here. And I'm pretty confident in our GM to figure things out.

LeBron ruined the NBA when he went to Miami. That caused Durant to go to an already loaded GSW team and...there you have it. It's a sport dominated by one superstar more than any other team sport(not breaking news to anyone). Just when I started thinking I was looking foolish in having not believed in the Bucks earlier this year....they piddle away a 2-0 lead and lose the next 3.

AS long as the stuff looked good, it's not the worst thing in the world.