The Bucks play the Raptors in the first round of the NBA Playoffs and I gotta say I’m excited. Not just because I think a decently sized buck might actually have a chance against a raptor in a Triassic cage match but because this is really kind of a throwback series. There were days between Michael Jordan — really the early 2000s Lakers — and Cavs-Warriors where you weren’t always sure who would win the championship if something disastrous didn’t happen and in those days a matchup between two playoff-worthy teams with a lot of room to grow would have been very exciting. Now, well, it’s fun to dream anyway.
You can’t talk about the Bucks without talking about Giannis Antetokounmpo. I’ll be honest that it took me a while to think of him as more than a guy with spectacular gifts who was nevertheless a little better at highlights than winning. We always pretend that young guys who make some impact will inevitably get way better, but even though Antetokounmpo added, on average, five points to his points per game every season after last year — when he scored 16.9 — I was wondering if he could really be elite there.
The answer is yes. He can’t shoot. Once he gets good enough for people to nitpick, they’ll be more worried about that, but he took 2.3 3-pointers per game this year while averaging 27.2 percent from the arc. But he doesn’t need to shoot. With arms the size of giraffe necks and strides as long as bowling alleys, Antetokounmpo scored 22.9 points a game this season with the efficiency of a center. Meanwhile he blocked nearly two shots a game and grabbed nearly nine boards. And played the defense of a particularly enraged octopus.
Read More: Khris Middleton is the perfect complement to Antetokounmpo
Plus, Jason Kidd has built what the Bucks do around Antetokounmpo in a really productive way. The Bucks have played super small for a while now, and it’s no small part because of what he can do at the rim and on the glass. Kidd trots out John Henson occasionally, Spencer Hawes and Michael Beasley sometimes, and most often Greg Monroe, and Thon Maker is technically 7-foot-1. But between Antetokounmpo and the 6-foot-8 Khris Middleton, the Bucks have been able to play uptempo small ball without sacrificing all that much. They do not have an elite defense, but it’s been above average in a lot of respects and they are very, very hard for teams to match up with.
Of course, the Bucks are not a one man team. They have also been particularly buoyed by the return of Middleton in mid-Feb and by the surprising play of rookie Malcolm Brogdon, who almost certainly was named after a detective on some short-lived Law & Order series. Brogdon is, so far, not a great player, but is really great for a first year guy drafted in the second round and while Middleton seems like he might have worn down a bit in April, his finding himself again might be the key to the Bucks doing a lot better than expected. Last year, he was an 18 points per game scorer, and this year he’s under 15 but it’s mostly a minutes thing. He’s shooting just as well across the board.
I’m not going to talk about Matthew Dellavedova because he’s gross but the Bucks have really received a lot of surprising performances lately. Tony Snell has chipped in a bit, here and there; Monroe, no longer a future star, has nevertheless been a key piece off the bench; Maker scored 20 points a couple weeks ago. And they have playoff hero Jason Terry. Remember, this is a man who once tattooed the NBA trophy on his bicep the offseason before he won the NBA trophy, and averaged 17.5 points on .478/.442/.843 in the process.
Still, all things considered, this team is a lot of interesting pieces that do not yet constitute an impressive team. That, again, starts with Antetokounmpo himself, who seems to have all the physical tools to be the next LeBron James, but, of course, isn’t yet, also. It’s no shame to be looking up at one of the best who ever did it, but in year four Antetokounmpo is not yet someone who can drag his team all that way. Any advanced stat you could name — PER (26), win shares (12.4), box plus/minus (7.6), value over replacement (6.9) — the man had a ridiculous year. But James in year three for example was at 28.1, 16.3, 9.3 and 9.5. Again, you’d have to be insane to think that’s a bad thing, or at all surprising, and for one thing it’s not like Antetokounmpo grew up playing like James did. But it’s a statement of where everything Bucks is today — exciting, impressive and fundamentally limited.
For now. And that for now is extremely key. I think it’s likely the Raptors will win this round, now that Kyle Lowry is back and since DeMar Derozan turned into an extremely good scorer this season. The Bucks don’t profile as a particularly good team — 42-40 on the season and a negative net rating (-0.2) which is usually a bad sign. But that’s okay really. The average age between Antetokounmpo, Jabari Parker, Middleton, Brogdon and Maker is 22. A bad number in Blackjack, a good number in the NBA world. In times like this you might think they’d be better off, from a long-term perspective, missing the playoffs to add another young gun to their core, but I think they’re ready to see what the playoffs are like and I think their fans are, too.
Next: Prepare yourself for the new and improved Playoff Giannis
So my prediction is Raptors in six, but that we’ll be seeing these dudes again very soon. And let me give you some advice as a Mavericks fan, too — there’s nothing sweeter than that first playoff run. After that it’s all frustration about them not going far enough. Take it in!