Bucks All-Star Break Report Card

[00:00:00] On this episode, I'm going to break down the box at the All-Star Break. I'm going through each player that's getting minutes and I'm going to give them a grade. We're going to talk about their plus minus and other stats that are good and bad. Let's get into it.

[00:00:13] Miller, step back free on the way! Come here! For you to city, city time is arrived! You're listening to the Milwaukee Bucks Beat, sponsored by hungry-lying productions video production services. Video production from start to finish. Higher them today at hungry-lyingproductions.com. And now, here's your host, Michael Edwards.

[00:00:44] Welcome to the Milwaukee Bucks Beat. I'm your host, Michael Edwards and we're here for another edition. Some stats and stuff. It's the All-Star Break. We have a bad taste in our mouth. I'm not even going through where we are because this thing is such a roller coaster

[00:01:01] right now. We're sitting at third in the east. I'm hoping the Bucks can hold that third seed, not fall to the fourth seed. I'll get into that later but let's break down some grades. Let's go through the players.

[00:01:15] See how their season is going and I'm going to give them a grade at the end of talking about them. Then I'm going to go through about 12, 13 players. There's some I'm not going to talk about.

[00:01:27] I'm not going to really talk about Patrick Beverly because he's willing to do it with a team for four games. Then a lot of the other bench players, we got about 12. I'm going to talk about 11 or 12. We'll start at the top.

[00:01:40] We'll start with Janus because he's the obvious one who is really playing consistent. Taking away my bias as a box fan, he's the MVP to League. Every point eight points a game, 11.2 rebounds six point four is this per game. He's flirting with a triple double every night.

[00:02:03] He's on the floor and obviously he's the leader of the team. He's also shooting 61.6% at the break here. He's plus 268. He's had a pretty consistent year. Really good. There is a stat that I want to talk about for each player too.

[00:02:22] There's something called TLV which is turnover percentage. Basically means when you're in the game, does your team turn it over? It's not necessarily you that's turning it over but does your team turn it over.

[00:02:35] It's kind of like a neighborhood of the plus minus and a way, but it's specifically turnovers. You want that number to be around 10 or lower. Number one on the league is like five. Amazing. If you're around 10 on the lower teams, that's good. Janice is at 13%.

[00:02:54] So 13% of the time he's in the game, there's a turnover. He's also getting a ton of minutes. That just shows that one is on the floor that the team delivers really well. Going through his year, I'm not going to break down each month but he's been pretty

[00:03:10] consistent and he had a really good December and December alone he was plus 137. So far for February though, when he games he is minus one but overall for the season Janice sits at plus 268. Janice does have 346 assists and I saw his thing on Twitter.

[00:03:31] You know, a lot of people like to hit up low hanging fruit and start drum on all that phone stuff but I saw someone said, oh Janice has more assistant than Dame while Janice has played three more games than Dame has. Janice's played in 54 games.

[00:03:46] Dame is played in 51 so yeah, Janice has three more assists than Dame but there's also a three game sample in there that's not included. So very, very misleading as you know stats can be sometimes and you know from the line

[00:04:00] here's just one downfall he is shooting 65% for the year about kind of wearing normally as. But yeah, I'm probably going to get to an A. I don't really give out A plus as I'm not the A plus kind of guy unless you're cooking

[00:04:13] any baked goods, you know any kind of bakery or baked goods then you're definitely going to get A plus for me especially cookies. Love cookies. I don't know why I'm thinking about cookies. Plycos I'm dieting right now. Okay, going into our next guy Dame Lillard.

[00:04:29] No, this is kind of a mixed bag for me. Giving him a grade has been little challenging because there's two things going on here. So there's the player on the court and comparing them to the other players in the league

[00:04:42] and then there's comparing him to what he's already done in the bar. He's already set for himself. So it's tough to be able to grade someone knowing their top 75 player of all time according to the NBA.

[00:04:53] So his standard is a little higher than like a beastly or you know, maybe in Chris Middleton would be Dame me and Lillard's done some big things right in the league. So the good stuff, he's 24.6 points per game.

[00:05:09] 6.7 assists per game which I just mentioned is higher than young as is but the fact young as is passing the ball is a good thing. Dame Lillard is a little better that number needs to go up. Here's where he's he's hurting the team.

[00:05:25] So he's taken about 17.4 shots per game. Eight of those eight to nine of those are three pointers. So from the field overall, he's shooting 42.3. That's not going to cut it. Those are now Dame Lillard numbers. Those are good numbers if you're not Dame Lillard.

[00:05:44] If you're an average gardener league that's acceptable but Dame Lillard numbers. No, those are not good. The number needs to be up to 45. So he's going to penalize for that and then from 3.0 and 34.1% on the season even though

[00:05:59] he's the back to back 3.5 champion, and be a Alstar break 3.5 champion congratulations to Dame Lillard and I'm out but for the season it's not doing so hot. So he's going to penalize for that. So those are major things with him being who he is.

[00:06:17] The offense should be running through him obviously on us as well but we want to see more of Dame Lillard according to doc rivers. So those physical numbers and those three point numbers got to go up. So he's definitely getting penalized for that.

[00:06:30] He is plus 254 and this was a tough one. It's kind of a B minus C plus I'm going with the C plus because Dame is set the standard for how good he needs to be, he's not there. He's not that guy.

[00:06:45] And the Dame Lillard we know is so competitive. I'm hoping in these final 28 games, 29 games, whatever is left that we see that version of Dame Lillard and him and the honest can get going. Little hard on Dame though, tough love.

[00:06:59] Kind of on that border line of a B minus but I'm going with the C plus. If he has some extra credit points here I'd give him the B minus but you know. The one thing is going for him though is the free throw percentage.

[00:07:12] So maybe I can kind of teet or I'm between the two of them. The B minus and the C plus he is 92.5% from the free throw line. He leads the team in that stat, not including a jiggering but a jiggering is hardly been in the line.

[00:07:25] So yeah, Dame Lillard, the man he's playing good but he needs to play better quite frankly Brook Lopez. When it's hopped in the league for blocks 2.7 blocks per game, he's got a couple games where he's had seven blocks in a game, shooting 48.3% from the field.

[00:07:47] Not so hot from three but he has a big man so we're going to give him a little slack on that. This taking 5.2 shots per game from three point land, that might be a little high. Brook brings a lot on both sides of the ball though.

[00:08:02] He is our win protector. His T.O.V. percent I just pretty good. It's 8% and that is actually in the top 20 of a league. I forgot to mention Dame's his is 11. So Janus is this 13. Dame Lillard is 11. Brook Lopez is 8.

[00:08:22] So anything around 10 is really good so Brook is in the top 15 in the league. What that means is when he's on the floor there's not a lot of turnovers happening around him and that's an important stat.

[00:08:36] Brook Lopez is a very important player in their team based on how he's been playing previous years. I mean his numbers are down from last year so I'm going to go with a B-minus for Brook. He's obviously important. He's a rim protector.

[00:08:49] I love the dude too he's a cool guy. He doesn't get any points for that he has plus 206 on the season and now we move to Malik B-slee. Who I think is a sleeper candidate for one of our top players but I'm not talking

[00:09:03] overall but I'm just talking about what he brings on the floor. Somebody's numbers really jump off so first of all he's 230 plus 230. He's higher than Brook. He's the third highest on the team plus minus.

[00:09:15] He's a major major part of our offense from the field he's shooting 46.8% and from 3 he's 44.4%. He's making about 3 about 7 attempts every game so that's good. I'm really all I can ask for right. He's averaging 11.4 a game and like I said plus minus is 230 is TLV percentage is 7.

[00:09:45] Let's see if we can get a total of 8 in the league. Minimum contract. I mean he's the A minus B plus for what he's bringing when he's out there. His defense is getting better too so I really like Malik B-slee.

[00:10:08] I actually kind of would like to see him though move to the second unit. There's some rotation experiments I think Coach Duck River should try. Malik B-slee let's just be honest he belongs in the starting lineup okay but our second

[00:10:23] unit is struggling and we do have another buyout addition then I'm going to get to also we'll talk about that at the end. But our bench you know of crowd our portus, Connington Beverly and then AJ Green.

[00:10:39] They're not terrible but the people who are getting the minutes the dominant people are getting the minutes the dominant amount of minutes they're not pulling their weight. So that's where I think you move easily to that second unit and it could provide

[00:10:52] that spark hopefully we see that but we'll stay tuned for that now Chris Middleton and I want to remind you that this is a podcast from the fan perspective okay I'm not a professional you know reporter and I'm not you know kind of held at any standard

[00:11:12] this is as a fan so keep that in mind when to say what I'm about to say but the whole me things a little annoying okay he hurt his knee came back rehabbed and they're really babying it and I understand that we need Chris I get it.

[00:11:32] I think there's more than what they've told us about this because they're being really really ginger about it they're not letting him just unleash the howms and just play. Then he hurt you know hurts his ankle which is an unfortunate so he's he hasn't

[00:11:49] had the numbers that I kind of expect from him and for the kind of money he's making so I'm a little salty about that he's had a very good December he had a good November his February was

[00:12:00] taking off he's only had two games in February though he's sitting at 14.8 points for game the shooting is good as it usually is he's shooting 48.7% he has plus 182 on the year I expected

[00:12:18] this plus minus to be more he is only getting 26 minutes of game though so that is part of the problem so you figure you know 14.8 points only playing 26.3 minutes okay I'll give him that I'll give him that

[00:12:35] he shouldn't go from three he's not shooting good though he's 37.8% from three he's shooting about four and a half per game he's making one point seven so he's shooting five and making two we'll say and I'm just gonna give him a solid be or maybe even a be

[00:12:52] minus he's kind of in that friend area but I'd rather have a momma court than have moth the court let's just be honest about about him and you know the big stat that I think is really important though

[00:13:03] is the T.L.V. stat and he's 14.3 so it's not terrible it's not awful it's not you know breaking news either but it's when he's out there there's not a lot of turnovers I mean 14% of the time

[00:13:20] he has made a lot of bone headed like dribbling issues this year though and a lot of bone headed passes he seems slower I think he's worried about hurting himself versus playing and you know I'm not professional athlete so I'm not gonna criticize the man because obviously

[00:13:38] there's life after basketball and you don't want to cause permanent injury and I totally get that you gotta have quality of life too after you leave whatever game you're playing if you're a professional

[00:13:48] athlete so Chris Middleton will go be minus well that's what we'll settle on be minus so now we're going to the bench and so there's two things going for me here that I want to talk about with the bench

[00:14:04] is you've got the eye test of watching every game and then you're having the emotions that come with watching a mochi box game as a fan and then looking at the actual numbers so I want to be clear

[00:14:17] all these people individually as human beings I admire them all what they do off the court I admire the work that they do to make the community better to help others to make it bigger than themselves

[00:14:29] I appreciate that okay so I mean criticism I give right now it strictly is a fan strictly as what I'm seeing and what we know they're capable of doing and if they're not meeting those expectations

[00:14:42] I'm going to talk about it here let's run talk about j crowder so j crowder is first of all at minus 124 of all the people in our lineup and this is surprising me because

[00:14:57] there's two other people off the bench I thought would be lower and they're not and I'll get to them but j crowder minus 124 out she was minus 27 in October minus 28 November minus 31 in January minus 38 in February and it's still a pretty small sample size it's 25 games 24 minutes

[00:15:23] a game in the games he has playtons he is shooting 44% from the field which okay it's fine he's putting in about 7 points a game 37% from 3.land but yeah minus 124 I'm going to put him at a c- that is it's really hurting the team

[00:15:43] really hurting the team j crowder I mean you're a good dude j you are snazzy dresser my friend what you need to get together you're not playing ball the way that you can play now I will say

[00:15:55] in the month of November when he got hurt shoot in 56% from the field 54% from 3 so let's get that version back because right now from 3 this month of February who shoot in 25%

[00:16:14] so I think the all-star break is a good thing for this team I can't find too many arguments that there's a team in the NBA that needs it more than Milwaukee box they need to break

[00:16:26] they need to get away from each other you know go on vacation do whatever you need to do don't even think about basketball you know hopefully this refreshes them by yeah that hurts 124 minus 124

[00:16:40] and then we need to go to TV percentage you would think it'd be really bad right it's actually not 7.4% that's really good so there's some you know numbers that aren't match enough here

[00:16:56] so I'm hoping that it's just because we don't have a full sample size from j crowder he has about half a sample size everyone else has so I'm hoping that's it because there isn't not anomaly there

[00:17:07] with those numbers and he's minus 124 you'd think his TV percentage would be through the roof uh yeah I don't know we'll find out j crowder hopefully buddy you get your your legs and

[00:17:21] confidence and you come out because we are we are pulling for you we need everybody in the playoffs now we're going to do the next two I'm going to do Bobby Portis fellow by Pat Comington

[00:17:29] now can't talk about that eyed test right as the fan and seeing things and then looking at the numbers and then going okay it's very interesting so what I've noticed and you know the

[00:17:40] human brain is a little funky sometimes I've noticed Bobby taking a ton of shots where maybe he's not in position to be doing what he's doing and he's missing those shots a lot of shots within you

[00:17:52] know six feet of the basket he's missing them so I thought his numbers were going to be horrible turns out he's shooting 49.4% from the field yeah that's right he's the second leading shooter

[00:18:05] percentage on the Milwaukee box I had a double check that stat like what yeah shooting 10 shots a game he's making five so you know I'm running the numbers up but he's only minus 29 I'm a season

[00:18:21] that's it I was shocked when I saw those numbers his rebounds are around seven so he's getting rebounds he's scoring 12.7 points per game another man who really one of that all starbreak

[00:18:37] really bad and I'm glad he's able to have it and one thing I do want to talk about though is Bobby put out a tweet talking about how he's seeing some hate and one of my criticisms for Bobby Portis is

[00:18:49] won your contract you're getting paid money buddy you're getting paid some big bucks so there's some things that come with that and I don't feel bad for him I don't the kind of money's

[00:19:00] making it's life changing money it'll change his family for generations okay so don't complain Bobby man up when you have two guys on you three guys on you don't turn around and take that jump shot

[00:19:11] because you have been doing that a lot kick the ball out to one of your open teammates that's my only criticism for Bobby I love you you're the mayor you are a bro we love you but you got to

[00:19:21] turn your game up bud you got to turn your game up I think there is going to be some loss of minutes firm our bio candidate which I'll talk about again coming up here at the end because we have a

[00:19:34] player that's kind of like my take on it at least is to cross between a Bobby Portis and a brok Lopez but he's a better score that's who we picked up I'll talk about that at the end so Bobby

[00:19:44] might see his minutes go down a little bit if he doesn't pick up his game I'm gonna go with his team minus for Bobby Portis and looking at his T.O.V. percentage he's sitting at 8.1 so it's not terrible

[00:20:01] so for me the eye test is not matching up with his stats so I think I am being a little hard on Bobby Portis and I think some of you fans out there you're being a little hard on him and one of the

[00:20:15] things I know with this team and I heard Pat Beth talk about this on his podcast is the really big difference between here in Milwaukee and everywhere else he's been as he said everybody in that

[00:20:26] lock room in Milwaukee they want to win don't care about stats don't care about another crap they want to win so part of the problem might be because he's so intense I'm talking about Bobby he's so

[00:20:38] intense that maybe he's trying a little too hard here okay so that's where this all start break comes in it's really helpful I think just for your mental health if anything you rest up your body

[00:20:51] and get ready for that final kick here that's coming up Pat Connington now this is a man who I mean good dude but this is a man who on the eye test I don't want to be too hard on him but

[00:21:05] he's not playing good he's not playing good basketball ball he's getting 21 minutes a game way too many minutes those minutes need to start going to people like AJ Green and Patrick Beverly I firmly believe two in Bench and players if they're not performing and you're trying to get

[00:21:23] them going they're not getting going he just Bench them sometimes that's all it takes he hasn't had a good year he hasn't really had he said one good month just summer was good for him he was

[00:21:34] plus 53 in December but otherwise every month I mean January yuck minus 56 so far in February is minus 14 physical percentage of the last two months he is ticking up it's hard to notice that though

[00:21:47] but in January shooting 54% so far this month and eight games Pat is shooting 50% from three he's actually doing okay I mean in January he shot 51% and so far this month he's shooting 40% my eye test isn't really there I mean shooting 45% from the field 38 point 5% from three

[00:22:12] he does make a lot of hustle plays he just something's off with him and I hope whatever it is he figures it out see minus for Pat Connington so Bobby Port is the Pat Connington or a see-minus and now closing this out I've got three more

[00:22:28] dudes I'm not grading Patrick Beverly because he's only been with us for four games and I just don't think that that there's not enough sample there but there's one guy on this list

[00:22:41] he should be getting minutes from Pat Connington and that's AJ Green so AJ Green is shooting 41.5% from three point land he's starting to get a nickname AJ automatic he said some games or he'll just

[00:22:56] three possessions he'll hit three isn't you know three in a row and he's plus 29 coming off the bench and now about 9.3 minutes a game his defense has gotten really good too he's really putting in

[00:23:10] the effort when he's in that game showing the coach he wants to be in there I'm going with a B-minus the other thing that is really interesting now he doesn't have the minutes and the game

[00:23:21] totals that other players have but he does have the lowest TLV percentage of all of the players on Milwaukee bucks but he just didn't qualify for the list I don't know what the cutoff is for minutes

[00:23:36] but it's 3.1% and that is really elite I mean if he was to qualify he'd be first in the league so AJ Green is a hell of a player he needs to get more minutes

[00:23:49] most certainly will give you more quality minutes than Pat Connington right now there's no debate on that and even Pat might even agree with you on that so AJ Green is you're going to see more of him and he's

[00:24:02] he's a stud like I love that dude the final two I'm going to do Marjan and Andre Jackson Jr I'm going to do Marjan first a little confused why he's not getting minutes he should be taking

[00:24:14] some from Bobby I think kind of do the same thing with Bobby is you know you know rotate him in obviously but just take some minutes off of them and just you never know who's going to get hot

[00:24:26] right and if you're sitting on the bench a lot of those bench players are motivated they want to get in I know that was me I wanted to get in the damn game I wanted to play and when I did get in

[00:24:34] I played my ass off and that's what we need and we got some young dudes who can you know run around some of these veterans that we have and a lot of teams were playing like you know in the other

[00:24:45] night when we played Memphis Grizzlies those those were some young dudes and they were running up and down the court against us and that was part of the reasons they beat us I think so Marjan is

[00:24:54] shooting 47.7 from the field 39.1% from three he's plus 11 on the season when he's in there 14 minutes a game most of those are in garbage time but I like him I'm giving them a B-C plus

[00:25:11] I don't know why he's not getting minutes he should be getting more minutes. Obviously there's only so many minutes you can give people but I do like what coach bud did with his rotations where

[00:25:22] he kind of bounced out the regular season and you know tucked in a couple minutes here and their each game and give his players some rastys think that's the smart thing to do so hopefully

[00:25:31] doc goes to it he obviously has to get to know his personnel though and he you know it's like trying run full speed on treadmill I mean and then you know drink a glass of orange juice so it's hard

[00:25:44] to become a coach you know the middle of the season not have a training camp not have practices so I understand we have to be patient and I've been standing all year and that's probably not changing

[00:25:54] we've got 28 29 games left we gotta make the most of this and then finally Ajax and Ajax and Junior a couple good things and bad things the good things 52.3% from the field

[00:26:07] on 11 minutes per game not bad 37% from the 3.0 land he is minus 56 though he does make a lot of turnovers himself and as far as the TLOV numbers go he's one of the worst on our team 18.9%

[00:26:25] 12% edge and that's one thing the box really have to put a lot of focus on is not turning the ball over having ball movement and really just playing together as a team that's when we're at

[00:26:38] our best is when we're playing the other as a team hit in the open guys and obviously when you have that open shot not gonna down it's not gonna happen every time but that's where we've really struggled

[00:26:50] so coming into the overall grade of the team I mean we are in third place I think the expectations are really high in Milwaukee and I think you know I noticed Wisconsin sports fans they

[00:27:05] tend to get a little dramatic and I'm not an indefference on the you know people who know me right now are laughing their ass off been like you're one of the most dramatic people I know

[00:27:15] and I get I get that but that being said right in third place we want to make sure we stay in third place though because right now if the season ended first round box Pacers

[00:27:29] and it could be box heat again first round because the Pacers and the heat are having a part we're at the three right now now if we fall to the four we have the 76ers if we do get

[00:27:42] somehow past that series then we have the Celtics and round two don't like that so box got to be two or three because then if they stay two or three so if they stay three which is where I think

[00:27:54] they will finish they'll have the Pacers the heat maybe filly I don't know so it's gonna be tough hopefully like a lesser team can crawl up there but the way it's looking right now it's

[00:28:07] it's looking like it could be a tough first round matchup for the box all these teams in the Easter pretty good you know obviously if you're the one seated probably have the magic

[00:28:16] depending on who wins the play and but right now it's bucks Pacers then if they win that series it's most likely again we don't know but most likely bucks calves and then probably Celtics

[00:28:31] and we're making assumptions anything can happen the final thing I want to talk about here the buyout market we do miss Robin Lopez Milwaukee loves you Robin wherever you are hopefully listening hello my wife loves you but the new Denny low kind of narrae is the Milwaukee buck

[00:28:55] and this season he's averaging 7.3 points a game last five games he's 54% from 3.5 52% from the field right now we need that offense six foot 10 he's a big dude who can shoot

[00:29:15] not the greatest of defense but I mean he can play he can dunk he can three he can do it all he's a good passer I love the addition I think the way our defense had been trending up until those

[00:29:30] last two games before the break take away those two I like the way our defense was going and we need a lot we can get an offense so I think he's gonna take some minutes from pat and bobby

[00:29:41] and we'll see coming off a break the Milwaukee bucks have the fourth toughest guy doing the NBA and the toughest in the east they start off with on the road at the timber walls and then

[00:29:58] in filly and then two against the harness and then one against the bulls that is the big one so of those five games bucks need to win those three of those I think the timber wallf's game

[00:30:09] is gonna be tough the six years hornets two against the hornets and the bulls I think the bucks I'm not they need to win three of those four obviously if we could get the timber walls

[00:30:18] let's lovely but so if you made it this far I want to tell you I appreciate you I know what I want to thank you for listening we'll see you on the next one