Old habits die hard; excuses, dysfunction and what about that challenge that was promised?
By the third season, the Milwaukee Bucks took a major step back based on the talent that was on this roster. The Bucks were playoff contenders, but the only problem was the team did not play like it.
The Bucks lacked offensive creativity (Does this sound familiar?) with a lot of one on one plays packed with isolations. This led to long scoring droughts and very bad losses to teams most thought the Bucks should be blowing out.
Jason Kidd would blame the losses on the team’s youth.
That excuse probably would fly any other year because it’s an oldie but goodie!
Just not last year.
You see, there was this team in Boston, who happens to reside in the same conference as the Bucks, who seemed to be thriving under Brad Stevens with younger players than the Bucks had. Giannis was young, but the team had Khris Middleton, John Henson, Tony Snell and the aforementioned Bledsoe.
Plus, the Bucks could not stop a soul on the basketball court. Many of the issues stemmed from Kidd’s inability (or unwillingness) to make adjustments to improve the defense. After the last three months, does anyone need this?
Boston had lost Gordon Hayward and filled in the gap with Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Terry Rozier and we all know the run they had when Kyrie Irving went down before the playoffs. To top all of that off, the Celtics were one of the best defensive teams in the NBA last year. Stevens’ performance made Kidd look unprepared and lazy.
Remember when Kidd won the Bucks brass about that “challenge” of working with Jabari Parker? By the time of Kidd’s ouster, they weren’t even speaking.
Not sure how much his relationship w/ Jabari factored in but was told they weren’t speaking. https://t.co/PsibxRwUms
— Russillo (@ryenarussillo) January 22, 2018
At the time, Parker couldn’t stay healthy suffering knee injuries, but at the time he was on the floor, the Bucks considered him a cornerstone of the future. By that time, Kidd was gaining enemies in the front office over the roster (Really dude?) and the Bucks made the move to fire Kidd earlier than expected.
After all, Mike Budenholzer took this roster currently to the number one seed in the conference and Giannis has become an MVP candidate one season removed from Jason Kidd. Are we seeing a trend here?