Idiocy and Team Building

As someone who technically writes for this blog but hasn't in several months, it may seem quite silly for my first post to be about an NBA team literally no one cares about.  The very existence of this article follows none of the normal subject matter for this blog, and really doesn't make a lick of sense.  Why anyone would bother to devote time to purposefully creating such a terrible product is beyond most reasonable people, and yet here lies that article.

The Milwaukee Bucks are this article.

Absolutely nothing about the Bucks makes any sense whatsoever, even to the most casual of observers.  Last season, they were among the worst teams in all of basketball, in that they were neither bad enough to pick up any truly worthwhile talent in the draft nor good enough to make the playoffs as anything other than an afterthought eight seed awaiting destruction by the eventual champions.  Outside of Brandon Jennings' regrettable comments (a yearly tradition, along with his steadily degrading play), there really wasn't any reason to pay attention to the Bucks this year.  Going forward, the only person on the roster that is even a little exciting is LARRY SANDERS!, who is as ridiculous as any player in the league, both in his ability to create highlight blocks and his ability to be hilariously stupid on the court.  If there was ever to be a second JaVale McGee, he is it.



This was the only real strength of the Bucks last season: despite being so painfully mediocre, they were second in the NBA in blocks and second in defensive plays rate (or the number of blocks, steals, and charges created by a team per 100 opponent possessions).  Just about every statistic except for their rebounding rate (somehow 28th in the league) suggested that the only strength of the Bucks was their interior play.  Something needed to be done about the horribly inefficient scoring and "playmaking" of Monta Ellis and Brandon Jennings, and lo and behold it seemed something was done, sensibly even: the Bucks acquired J.J. Redick!

J.J. Redick, essentially.

That's right, Bucks management was smart enough to acquire a guard who was essentially the epitome of efficiency (eFG% of .551, assist and turnover rates significantly better than the league average at the time of the trade) when both their lead guards are anything but (Monta Ellis somehow managing to shoot .28% from three, both with eFG% four points under the league average despite 17 shots a game).  Even at the cost of promising young wing Tobias Harris, who went on to average 17 and 8 at the age of 21 with the Magic, that's a good player to have on your roster for years to come.

The Bucks traded J.J. Redick for two second round picks this offseason.

Even disregarding Redick's struggles in Milwaukee, both of his own accord and coach induced, this was idiocy.  The Bucks had essentially given away one of their only promising young players for the change to draft someone with far too many vowels in their name.  This left them with only LARRY SANDERS! and John Henson as building blocks, neither of which can be considered franchise players (especially not Henson) but both of whom at least have a chance to be good players.

Then the Bucks signed Zaza Pachulia and kept Gustavo Ayon, Ekpe Udoh, and Ersan Ilyasova, all while drafting Giannis Antetokounmpo.

The Bucks essentially have a roster of seven players to play the four and five, with Ilyasova and Antetokounmpo versatile enough to play the three but not exactly a good fit in today's NBA (Antetokounmpo considers himself a point guard, but I consider myself a writer, so there's that).  There simply is no room for all of these players to play, and that means that the only young talent on the Bucks roster is going to have time taken away from them and given to guys like Pachulia and Ilyasova who really won't ever help the Bucks get anywhere but back to being crushed by the Heat.

And who is on the perimeter, you ask?  That's a fair question, astute reader, let's take a look: gone is Monta Ellis, he of the Allen Iverson-like dreadful efficiency and pretty counting stats.  Probably here to stay (at least another year) is Brandon Jennings, equally dreadful in everything beyond the most superfluous statistics and declining every year as he becomes more and more disgruntled.  Alongside good Mr. Jennings is O.J. Mayo, a player known primarily for disappointing and for contributing only through insane usage numbers (sound familiar?).  Backing them up is... Luke Ridnour?

He's still around?

That's right, the third guard for the Bucks will be Luke Ridnour, a man who has been, at best, league average the last couple years.  A man whose primary role last season was filling in for the hundred and fifty injured players on the Timberwolves, alongside such luminaries as Dante Cunningham.  Behind him?  Ish Smith, who has been waived twice in his four years in the league, and Nate Wolters, a rookie so talented he spent four years at South Dakota State.  For those of you wondering: yes, South Dakota State has a basketball team.  It consisted of Nate Wolters.

Frankly, this may very well be as poorly constructed of a roster as possible.  Certainly, there are worse rosters in the NBA, but those are teams committed to losing now so they can stockpile talent for the future.  The Bucks refuse to be anything but just competitive enough every single year.  It's a situation generally accepted to be the worst for any team to be in, and yet Milwaukee refuses to be anywhere else, and that, dear reader(s), is why the Milwaukee Bucks are this article.