NBA Power Rankings: The Houston Rockets are a real threat

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Michael Beasley’s basketball rehabilitation stint in Wisconsin is going better than just about anyone could’ve predicted. The Milwaukee Bucks got even better news than Beasley’s surprising production recently, when news leaked that they could be getting back 3-and-D prototype wing Kris Middleton as early as February this season. Middleton, who tore his hamstring completely off the bone during his offseason training, was initially expected to be sidelined until around mid-to-late April. With Giannis Antetokounmpo taking his game to a completely different stratosphere and Jabari Parker being the Chris O’Donnell to his George Clooney–I mean Robin to Giannis’ Batman–the Bucks have been able to hang around .500 for the better part of the season. With the lack of dominant teams in the East, winning every other game has been good enough to keep them in the playoff race so far. With Middleton back Milwaukee would easily become a team that almost no one would want to face in May. Antetokounmpo has missed the last couple of games with an illness. Yet, when he’s been on the court for Milwaukee he has been one of the best players in the entire league. He’s using every inch of his 6-foot-10 height 7-foot-4 wingspan to absolutely terrorize opposing teams. At this point it looks like he won’t even need to worry about developing an outside shot as he’s finding ways to score at the rim whenever he wants despite only hitting 29.5 percent of his 3-pointers this season.