Monday Morning Media Roundup: October 3rd, 2022

Indulge me a moment, if you will. There are many things that make writing for this site during the offseason difficult. You have to challenge yourself to come up with something interesting to write about (a failure on my part this go around), there is little to no new developments to react to, and, crucially, our stock of images we can pull from to head these articles remains depressingly stagnant for weeks at a time.

Starting this past Saturday, that last issue is finally out of the way — the Bucks lost to the Grizzlies 107-102 to start preseason, but in some sense we all win because the staff won’t be tempted to pick yet again that image of Giannis on the bench in G7 against the Celtics hanging his head back in defeat. Nothing screams “this place is stagnant” more than a homepage where 5/7ths of the articles have the same exact picture.

So here’s to new images a new season full of them! It’s a welcome miracle to have made it.

Let’s roundup!

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30 Teams in 30 Days: Bucks Hope Healthy Roster Can Take Them Back to Finals (NBA.com)

There has been no easier beat in NBA writing circles this summer than getting assigned the “Bucks offseason recap” piece by your editor. You fire up basketball-reference.com to check who is on the roster and who got paid what, find out Milwaukee did relatively little, and bam! you’re done!

GM Jon Horst’s hands were a bit tied moving the roster chess pieces around; all in all, it feels like he did a fine job balancing retaining a competitive core while laying the groundwork for significant gains in flexibility heading forward. We’ve talked about the trick to contending being finding a way to roll the roster onwards. Horst has more room to do that now, so at least we’re in position to try and pull the feat off at all.

Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo says Stephen Curry is NBA’s best player after leading Golden State Warriors to title (ESPN)

Just another instance of Giannis gladly bigging up other players and teams in order to present himself with the challenge of besting them. It is a trick that has done well by him so far in his career, and in the era of rings being the end-all, be-all of basketball pantheon ranking, fair enough to state that the guy left standing is most deserving of the highest plaudits.

One Defining Number for Every Team in the NBA’s Eastern Conference (The Ringer)

Being old as hell has been a mainstay theme when talking about the Bucks this summer, so it is only right and proper that our most important number has to do with being old as hell. Makes you wonder if Marvin Williams has enough giddy up left in his legs for one last dance with destiny...

Milwaukee Bucks Mentioned As Potential Trade Destination For Jae Crowder (Fastbreak on FanNation)

Crowder is a quintessential “hate him if he’s playing against you, love him if he’s on your team” guy. Every time he put a shot up against us in the Finals, I was convinced that A) It was going in and B) It would somehow be worth 8 points each time. In the vein of getting older, I like that the trade proposal in this article would involve shipping Grayson Allen out in exchange.

More interesting was Zach Lowe dropping the nugget that the Bucks were snooping around to see if they could get in on the Jerami Grant sweepstakes while he was a Piston. Now that would’ve been an interesting pickup!

Want to watch Bobby Portis bowl at Landmark Lanes? You totally can on October 14. (Milwaukee Record)

Milwaukee’s most unlikely and most beloved ambassador continues his tour among the common folk. After a summer that saw him become an official partner with Visit Milwaukee, Bobby Portis will now be taking part in a bowling event in mid-October with proceeds going in part towards his charity, the Bobby Portis Foundation. What matters most is that we have ever more footage of his ordering various cocktails beloved by us Midwest yokels.

Bucks’ Giannis Says He’s Not Losing Sleep Over Criticism from ‘Bitter’ Gilbert Arenas (Bleacher Report)

The hatchet that never really was officially buried the other day with Giannis more or less directly responding to Gilbert Arenas’s contention that Giannis “doesn’t understand basketball”. As I said at the time, there could be some kernel of constructive criticism in that statement, but Arenas chose to use it as an excuse to right-turn his argument into the back-in-my-day-we-threatened-our-teammates-with-firearms-and-were-better-for-it vein typical of most recently-retired NBA player analysis. So it goes!

4 reasons Bucks won’t win 2023 NBA championship (ClutchPoints)

On the one hand, the author does write that Giannis is entering his “28th season” (let us all hope he somehow continues to viably play for us deep into his 40s lol); on the other hand, art of this kind is quite literally priceless:

Fan Post of the Week

This week was rare for a number of reasons in the eyes of the FPOTW committee: First, we had multiple posts for the first time since R983’s position by position ranking posts and second because the people voted. I should remind everyone that you can, indeed, rec a Fan Post if you enjoyed it and that this has weight with the committee! Which is why this week’s award goes to natemoen with “Milwaukee Bucks State of the Union: Fan Perspective”. A fair reminder to us all to appreciate the speed with which the franchise went from a laughingstock to champion.

And I’d also suggest you read up the other posts from this week!

• What if Milwaukee’s ‘Big Three’ Were Characters in Dungeons & Dragons? by DruSmith; an introspection on what kind of player you’d get if all you rolled were perfect 20s on every ability check
• When good guys need a bad and an ugly... by Akindinoss; evaluating not whether the roster of guys assembled are talented, but whether they have the all-too-important blend of character and tenacity to take the whole to the highest possible level

Thanks to all for writing!

Oh, and a reminder that burt snipes is looking for just a few more individuals for the upcoming (Unofficial) BH Fantasy League! Sign up here!

The Social Media Section

*enter year XYZ posts here*

The all of six people in the stands suggests the Brewers have sucked this year

Thanasis thinks he’s me at the range before I slice the absolute living hell out of a drive

Donte becoming an All-Star the second he leaves Milwaukee would only be proper

The main reason why Giannis will stay in Milwaukee forever is that all his contemporaries are goober dorks

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With luck, from this day forth I’ll be able to accurately read a calendar when setting up the games in the week to come! The Bucks are en route to the United Arab Emirates to take part in the Abu Dhabi Games — an NBA event wherein the American mishmash of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Atlanta, Georgia the Emiratis didn’t know they needed are sent to the Persian Gulf for some ball. The arena layout itself is pretty interesting:

The images of MBZ looking on in awe LeBron James-at-the-Finals style while Giannis throws Trae Young through a hoop will be a heck of a souvenir!

Milwaukee plays this Thursday, October 6th and this Saturday, October 8th, both against the Hawks, before returning stateside.

Happy Monday!