Ranking the Roster 2019: What the **** Happened with the Voting

As the leaves turn colors for the first time, a longstanding tradition begins. For years, we at Brew Hoop have done a ranking of which Milwaukee Bucks are the most valuable for the season. While there can be some disagreements between the middle of the ranking. The top and bottom have always been a fairly reliable gauge of the readers thoughts. So when we rolled out the 2019-2020 edition of the ranking we started with who we thought was the least valuable Bucks for that season. What should have been a very straightforward decision between players has now bubbled into a controversy this site hasn’t seen since somebody decided to go on a Twitter rant about Bucks media coverage at the beginning of the season.

The 15th valuable player, aka the least valuable player on the Milwaukee Bucks this season, normally is reserved for a guy on a training camp deal, someone who has absolutely no long term future on this team or a player whose contract is so bad it makes Timofey Mozgov blush. So going into this season, the likely candidates for the bottom ranking were Dragan Bender, Thanasis Antetokounmpo, Frank Mason or Cam Reynolds. So with 224 votes,which account for 21%, the person that would finish 15 was.....Ersan Ilyasova (record scratches). Granted, Thanasis did technically finished last when tallying up the votes for him and Reynolds/Mason over him.

Regardless, Ersan garnering 21% Was not what I, or anyone, would have pictured, so when we posted the results it wasn’t pretty.

Our own Adam Paris had his thoughts on the voting dilemma

Does that make him the least valuable on the team? I’d say no way. Thanasis was my personal vote given the fact I’ve literally forgot he’s on the team several times since the signing still feels so unbelievable, but I’d also accept Bender. I’m choosing to ignore the plethora of Bledsoe votes. Given the fact Ersan is an expiring contract and one of those veteran players I’d argue almost any Playoff team would be glad to have aboard for a few contributions, I would have had him noticeably higher on the value list. If Milwaukee wants to make a move midseason, his contract is also a quality mid-tier one that another team could covet as an expiring. But that’s just my two cents, which doesn’t ultimately matter when I’m shouting against the collective voice of the people

I agree with Adam on Ersan primarily being an expiring contract who still brings decent enough shooting, world-class charge taking and knows the system well. He may not have the best contract on the team, but he does provide something for the Bucks THIS season. So when a controversial result happens, there’s only one question to ask. What the **** happened with the voting??

Waking up on Friday morning (and subsequently this morning) to see the voting, I had to think of the potential causes and came up with the following:

• Russian hackers: While I feel like they have bigger fish to fry, why not just do some 2020 election practice.
• Flawed Math: Adding the option of Frank Mason/Cam Reynolds instead of Thanasis
• Intentional Troll job: Picking players just to be an obnoxious troll
• Planned sabotage: Somebody held a grudge against us and decided messing with the poll was their revenge

When I sat down and went through the options, all of them were valid. But the addition of Wes Matthews and Eric Bledsoe getting a high amounts of votes as well led me to the conclusion of a combination of flawed math but primarily an intentional troll job. So the mystery is solved; they don’t call me Kyle Holmes, the world’s greatest detective for nothing.

All right, back to the voting.

2019 Brew Hoop Roster Ranking

13. Donte DiVincenzo

14. Dragan Bender

15. Thanasis Antetokounmpo

Editor’s Note: I’m ignoring the glut of votes that came in against Ersan Ilyasova in yesterday’s exercise. In an effort to weed out whoever may be gaming this exercise, we’re switching to running the poll through Survey Monkey. All submissions will appear as anonymous to protect your privacy, and you won’t need a password or account to access the poll. Each device is limited to one submission.

Apologies that we have to take this extra step with a smidge less live transparency, but hopefully it will give us a more honest result. I’ll post the results of each poll in the next day’s article so everyone can see how it shook out. This poll closes at 6AM Central tomorrow.

Click here to vote for the Next Least Valuable Buck