2015-16 NBA Previews: Milwaukee Bucks

MILWAUKEE BUCKS

A popular selection for a breakout team is Milwaukee, full of long-limbs and youth and potential. Jason Kidd is already a clever coach, mimicking his playing career, and he used the odd roster wisely and should now have a full season of a healthy Jabari Parker for experimentation and more scoring. Yet more eyes will be on Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Greek god of wingspan and potential.

2015 in review:

The Bucks started well, going 30-23 before the All-Star break with an impressive defense. Curiously, the team decided to swap Brandon Knight, a perfectly fine point guard, for Michael-Carter Williams, who led one of the worst offenses in NBA history in Philly. The team cooled down the stretch, but they made it to a 0.500 record and made the playoffs, getting ousted by the Bulls. But it was a successful with growth for some young players and a legitimately good defense.

Rotation players in: Greg Monroe, Greivis Vasquez, Miles Plumlee.

Rotation players out: Zaza Pachulia, Jared Dudley, Brandon Knight, Ersan Ilyasova.

An unheralded player loved by plus/minus stats, Zaza Pachulia is being replaced by a younger model in Greg Monroe, another good passing big man but lacking some of Zaza’s midrange jumper or defensive skills. The team will definitely miss Swiss Army knife Jared Dudley for his ability to play in smaller lineups and hit outside shots. Knight was traded at the deadline, but he’s noted here because the Bucks collected their wins with him in most of their games last season. Ersan Ilyasova was a useful power forward for the Bucks with his stretch 4 ability; Kidd will miss having that weapon. Monroe is their one major addition, and one hopes that a fresh start away from Andre Drummond will awaken his powers. Miles Plumlee will fill out backup center duties, but his athleticism could match well with the rest of the team. Finally, Greivis Vasquez has backup duties, but it could be an ideal team for his distribution talents as long as they can hide his defense.

2016 Projected

In advanced stats, there’s one king, and it’s real plus/minus. Consequently, a number of projection systems see the swap of Zaza and Monroe as a major negative for the Bucks. Real plus/minus has the former rated as the second best center in the league with excellent defense and good, though not amazing, offensive value for a center. Pachulia is no Tim Duncan, but the Bucks had a defense rated fourth in the league, per basketball-reference, and someone had to get the credit. Their point guards weren’t Gary Payton, Khris Middleton received a lion’s share of approbation, Giannis has potential but any reasonable person wouldn’t rate him highly, and their options at power forward were limited defensively.

Who was the cause, or was this simply a fluke? The season before, Zaza had a league average rating. With some human rationalization and intuition, I would hesitate at labeling him a borderline all-star, and they probably won’t collapse without him.

Greg Monroe, however, was no RPM slouch himself, ranking ninth among centers per possession. He is not an elite defender and doesn’t have the requisite tools, but he’s more skilled offensively than most big men and should work well in the Milwaukee environment surrounded by perimeter players and being used as a high post hub for scores of young, lanky bodies cutting to the rim or to the three-point line.

Giannis has received a lot of attention, but has not yet produced at a high level. With his age, his physical tools, and his basketball skills, he could get a lot better; it’s just unclear how good he’ll be. Thankfully, he’ll receive more scoring help not just from Monroe but from a full season of an older Jabari Parker, who scored well inside and has a good chance at becoming one of the best young scorers in the league. Defense is a concern, but the team needs more help on offense than defense.

The other player real plus/minus adored was Middleton, who posted defensive numbers like he was the east coast Tony Allen and a comfortably above average offensive plus/minus, which is probably legitimate — he’s a very good shooter without any negative interaction effects, like ball-hogging or stat-padding. He’s a good defender though; he’s just not a game-changer[6. Plus/minus models are ultimately looking at how well a team outscores an opponent when a player is on the court, so if an opposing team misses a few shots they should make, the players on the court look like better defenders even if they aren’t doing anything to truly affect the shots. With a large enough sample size, this problem shrinks, but it can persist for long stretches.].

The biggest issue I have with the Bucks is the presence Michael Carter-Williams. The team did poorly after they traded for him, and with his track record it’s easy to see why. He can’t shoot anywhere really, not from behind the arc or inside or even at the free throw line, and he’s not as good a defender as his steals suggest. A Rookie of the Year trophy doesn’t make you a better either. As a scoring point guard, he’s better with the ball in his hands, but he’s really not the player you want with the ball on this team, so it’s unclear what he can actually do for them. The team might be better off with Vasquez at point guard or with a no-point guard lineup for long stretches, using Giannis and Jabari as the ballhandlers.

Based on Milwaukee’s personnel, I don’t see an elite defensive team. John Henson has some of the qualities of a great defender, but the results have never been there. The team is missing Jared Dudley, and their other pieces like Mayo don’t help them on defense. Their offense should be better, hopefully, which will offset some of their losses. But they may not be as good as many people think.

Quick statistic/graph

Hockey assists are a fun little stat provided by SportVU, even if I can’t quite gauge their value. Chris Paul lapped the field with his lead in secondary assists, but there were a few surprising names, one of which was a Buck: Jerryd Bayless. Dennis Schroder is surprising too, but at least he had a high number of assists overall — Bayless was a hair under 5 assists per 36 minutes. A high assist volume point guard makes sense for this list, and so does a guard on a fantastic, active offense, like Curry or Schroder and Jeff Teague in Atalanta. But how did Bayless show up on this list? His secondary assist stats were worse in 2014 but not terrible; it might be a fluke but it could still be an important statistical signal. With his speed and change-of-pace style, there could be something here about how he can break down defenses in such a way that induces more hockey assists.

Table: 2015 SportVU secondary (aka “hockey”) assists (source: stats.nba.com)

Summary

Provided that the Bucks were a 41 team last year and lost some pieces but brought in Greg Monroe, the fact that they’re mostly young should offset any losses with a year of growth, and thus, it’s a reasonable assumption to see them as slightly better, depending on your views of Jabari Parker and Zaza Pachulia. But there’s a reasonable fear that a full season of the negative synergy of Michael Carter-Williams and regression on defense could push the Bucks down in the rankings. At least they have Jason Kidd, who is not afraid to experiment with lineups, and they have a few versatile players to adapt.

PBP-Metric[2. This is the initial version of my own metric, which uses a full range of stats collected from play-by-play logs and tested extensively to avoid overfitting.]: 42.2

PT-PM: 36

Nick‘s[3. For a short description, the predictions use regression models and neural networks to apply various stats like BPM, RAPM, and Win Shares to 10,000 simulations of the season game-by-game to select the “best” result.]: 34

Nathan Walker: 38