The Milwaukee Bucks are caught between the end of the Giannis Antetokounmpo era and the beginning of the next chapter in Bucks basketball, without an incentive to lose games or a realistic prospect of winning them at a high level. While not ideal from a team-building perspective, this situation does open up an ideal development opportunity for Bucks head coach Taylor Jenkins as he looks to build the team in his image.
Without the ability to tank, the Bucks don't need to fret about winning games or losing them to worsen their odds in the NBA's new lottery system. Milwaukee has enough veterans to set up a solid infrastructure and force young players to earn their minutes without real external forces pushing against that natural progression.
There's been one slight hiccup in that plan: the young players look more ready to contribute now than the veterans.
Nate Ament is the perfect encapsulation of this idea , but unfortunately is currently sidelined with an ankle sprain. Brayden Burries, Ousmane Dieng, and Kasparas Jakucionis are all healthy, but were sat in the Bucks last preseason game vs the Charlotte Hornets to give the vets more run.
The vets, unfortunately, ran the Bucks into the ground against Charlotte. Despite the Hornets being without key players including Kon Knueppel, Coby White, Grant Williams, and Grayson Allen, Charlotte rolled over the Bucks and won 105-90. It's less fun from a fan perspective to sit the promising young Bucks, and it's also been less productive for the team.
Kyle Kuzma has started two games at forward and is shooting 28.6% from the field and scoring 6.5 points per game. Gary Trent Jr. is below him at 17.6% from the field and 5.5 points per game. Caris LeVert has them both beat: he's yet to make a shot or score a point in 29 minutes of action.
It's not just the individual stats either: the Bucks have been blitzed in each of those players' minutes including a ghastly -25 in 28 minutes of LeVert ball so far.
Milwaukee isn't exactly the Jordan Bulls when the young guys play, but they have been better. Burries and Jakucionis are both averaging more than 10 points per game on still-bad-but-better shooting percentages than any of the veterans listed above. Dieng scored 8 points in his lone preseason game, but added five rebounds and seven assists to just one turnover in 22 minutes of action.
The idea of playing veterans to establish a culture and show the young Bucks what to do sounds good, but is there really value in showing them how to get smoked by the Hornets?
Building a culture that rewards worse basketball with more opportunity seems counterproductive. It certainly didn't work for the Doc Rivers Bucks over the last few seasons. Thankfully, it does seem like Jenkins is using the preseason to simply look at most of the roster versus permanently sidelining the young players.
Dieng, Jakucionis, and Burries are all vastly more intriguing prospects than Kuzma, Trent Jr. or LeVert, and they may just be straight up better at basketball too. It's fair for Jenkins to give each player chances to prove themselves throughout training camp and the preseason, but artificially supressing minutes for surging young players isn't going to help now or later.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/nba/bucks/onsi as Taylor Jenkins should lean into younger Bucks ahead of schedule .
