[Lowe Post] Howard Beck "leaning hard" Giannis, Lowe at a standstill

Yes we saw what Bud did in Atlanta and it getting Atlanta a top 4 seed the majority of his years there.

What do you think he did in Atlanta?

 

1pt and 2 rb improvement leads to best records in the NBA and causes people to lean hard apparently. Take that for data.

 

He was there for 5 seasons and finished #8, #1 (and got swept by Cavs in ECF), #4, #5, #15.

They were top 4 only 2x out of 5 - that is not a majority where I come from!

BTW he was made Head of basketball operations in 2015 and the roster went south from there.

 

Ok I was wrong about being top 4 but getting to the playoffs 4 out of 5 years is still good accomplishments.

And making it to the ECF when Paul millsap is your best player is certainly a great accomplishment.

Being made Head of operations means nothing to this conversation it's about coaching and he did an above average job in Atlanta like he is doing in Milwaukee.

You act like he underachieved in Atlanta.

 

Nope - just said he is not miracle worker.

He did a good job at Atlanta, but he is not doing anything that a decent coach couldnt achieve with the current Milwaukee roster. I simply dont subscribe to the notion that Milwaukee's current success is primarily driven by him.

The success of the current bucks is built on the dominance of the Freak and the quality of the supporting cast around him. Bud is a distant 3rd.

They were so terrible in the past was due to Kidd being a terrible coach. Half of the coaches in the NBA could probably replicate what Bud has achieved.

 

His true nickname is the Brick Freak

 

and?

 

Now you have just gone to the other side of the spectrum. You dont get Atlanta to 60+wins with no Superstar by just being a "decent coach" and I would def not say hes a distant third either. And half in the NBA coaches in the league could definitely not achieved what Bud has.

I understand you think Giannis is great which he is but don undersell coach Bud here.

 

Underselling Bud is laughable when all the evidence is otherwise.

 

And you better use it more often if you aim for a high accuracy of expression and having a better perspective on the topic.

The Brick Freak
so fitting and appropriate to the title of discussion.
People would award a player who cant shoot a lick an MVP in the modern Era of basketball dominated by 3 pt shooting ...yeah right... no way Pedro!

 

it only goes to prove how weak is the case for The Brick Freak when ppl have to reach so much to make the brick freak an MVP

 

Have you heard of the concept of a fluke? Atlanta got 60 wins in a season when the east was so pathetic that teams with losing records were making the playoffs.

In the playoffs, it took them 6 games to dispatch the #8 Nets who had a 38-44 losing record (series was tied 2-2- after 4). The another 6 games to beat the 46-36 wizard and were swept in the finals by the Cavs.

Since then, it was downhill for the hawks, and it wasnt that the roster were filled with scrubs as they had the likes of Milsap, Horford, Korver, Teague and Schroder.

As for coaches that can do same or better (off the top of my head): Pop, Kerr, MDA, Spoelstra, Snyder, Brad Stevens, Malone, Nurse, Rivers, Casey, McMillan, Carlisle, Stotts, Joeger, Borrego

 

Huh? If coaching is a distant 3rd reason for why the bucks are achieving what they are, then Kidd’s impact would have been minimal in prior seasons as well, and giannis’ last season would have translated into more team success.

You can’t arbitrarily reorder events in terms of how important they are after the fact. If coaching isn’t important, the bucks would have won more the last 2 seasons, as giannis is largely the same player today as he was last season, according to any statistical measurement available.

You might be saying his team mates have improved significantly, which I agree with as well. However, that also isn’t a reason to crown giannis mvp.

 

Coaching is important but not the primary reason for the Bucks success.

Kidd is a terrible coach, while Bud is a good coach and thus levels of improvement over Kidd. But Bud is not a top 10% coach. - He is not a Popovich 2.0. There are many coaches that would do as well with the same roster, so I dont see why he deserves most of the credit, (though Kidd probably deserves public flogging.)

Giannis on the other hand has developed into a top 10% player who is so dominant that he is almost unstoppable 1v1. The supporting cast also compliments him well. Those are more bigger contributors to their success. You can easily replace Bud, with one of many coaches and still have the same level of success but same cannot be said for the roster.

Personally, I am more impressed with what Mcmillan is doing without Oladipo and what Spo has been doing in Miami. As for Pop, I have grown numb to what he does not just with players, but his coaching family tree (including Bud, Brett Brown, Borrego, and Snyder)

 

You dont get 60 wins by a fluke, thats a weak argument..

Yea its generally harder to win in the playoffs where superstar talent matters more. But they still beat them and got to the conference finals. Toronto got swept by the Cavs last year too with a worse roster, gimme a break, everyone got swept by those Cavs. They just had Altant's number just like they had everyone elses number.

That Roster had no continuity whatsoever not to mention crappy management and ownership, he had as much success as anyone else did in the east.

Pop sure,

Kerr no, he could not do what Bud did atlanta and frankly hes overratted, Spolstera since Lebron has not done much, first or second round exits similar to bud, nothing like Atlanta's sixty wins season,

Snynder possibly,

Brad Stevens is having massively underwhelming season and has more talent than Bud has ever had on his roster(even the Bucks),

Malone....LOOOL,,

Nurse a one year coach is better than proven Bud, yea no.

Rivers...ehhh has had a bunch of talented teams that has underperformed but no all of his fault so its hard to say.

Casey...never, not even on the same level.

McMilliann has really only proven himself with this Indiana team and even then he's got "talent" on htis roster like Bud did in Atlanta(although Atlanta prolly had more) and before that he was very underwhelming in Portland.

Carlisle...yea prolly. Slotts...the guy who got 4-0 as a 3rd seed..yea sure.

Joerger.....has not proved anything in Memphis that lesser coaches havent.

Borrego....really??? Im not even gonna entertain this, cmon dont do that.

 

So you seem to agree that coaching is the significant reason that the Bucks made the jump be it Bud or someone else....right?

And he is only averaging 2points and 2rebounds more than last year so what greater impact is he having on the team this year?

How is he do much more dominant than last year?

 

This just in, East still pathetic. Carry on.

 

It's the 2nd easiest since 1999-2000 season(last 20 seasons, and all the top 30 easiest schedule come from an east team).

 

No surprise.
Zach "Standstill" Lowe aka Zach "I legit don't know who I'm voting for" votes Giannis.

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26481556/zach-lowe-2018-19-nba-awards-ballot-winners-tight-races

A year ago, as insiders debated what a coaching change might mean for the league's brightest young superstar, you often heard a note of caution: The talent around Giannis isn't that good.

No one would say that now, after Khris Middleton's All-Star turn, Eric Bledsoe's career season, Malcolm Brogdon's 50-40-90 campaign, and the raging of Splash Mountain. Jon Horst and Mike Budenholzer, Milwaukee's GM and coach, crafted the shooting-heavy ecosystem in which all those players -- plus Antetokounmpo -- thrived.

It is hard to untangle Antetokounmpo's MVP case from the work of Milwaukee's brain trust. They mitigated Antetokounmpo's one weakness: his jumper. James Harden has no weaknesses on offense. He could thrive within any ecosystem. He is the best offensive player in the league.

The roster around Antetokounmpo was healthier, deeper and better than the one around Harden. Excluding garbage time, the Rockets outscored opponents by just 1.1 points per 100 possessions with Harden on the bench -- and 6.2 points when he played, per Cleaning The Glass. He took a slightly above-average team in the tougher conference and made them very good. He saved a season that was teetering.

The Bucks outscored opponents by 4.3 points per 100 possessions when Antetokounmpo rested, and 12.5 points with him on the floor. He turned a good team into a supernova.

Which of those is more "valuable"? There is no universal answer. All the sample sizes are small, anyway. We don't really know how Milwaukee would have fared with a replacement-level player in Antetokounmpo's spot.

Best and most valuable are almost the same, but not quite. Kevin Durant is better than Damian Lillard, but he is not as "valuable" -- as indispensable, irreplaceable, whatever -- to the regular-season fate of this Golden State team as Lillard is in Portland. Rewarding players who lift flawed, injured rosters is baked into the MVP process.

The trick is deciding how much. Rewarding candidates on thinner teams means indirectly punishing candidates on better teams. There is a point at which that equation tilts out of balance.

No one would have argued Antetokounmpo's supporting cast was wildly superior to Harden's, or even superior at all, at the end of last season. Much changed between then and now: Brook Lopez entered, Trevor Ariza exited, and injuries (to Clint Capela and Chris Paul, notably) throttled Houston.

Any difference in roster quality is not enough to win Harden MVP. Any team could have had Lopez. Middleton and Bledsoe were borderline All-Stars in the Eastern Conference who would not have made it in the Western Conference. Antetokounmpo elevated them at least as much as Budenholzer and Horst did in crafting Milwaukee's playing style -- and probably much more. He took this roster where an MVP typically would, and maybe further. Harden did the same with his team.

Milwaukee is 7.5 games ahead of Houston. Its scoring margin with Antetokounmpo on the floor is double Houston's with Harden. If those numbers were closer, the roster-quality argument would win the day for Harden. You can't punish Antetokounmpo for leading a healthier, more talented roster if he led it to its proper endpoint.

Open 3-pointers do not materialize without Antetokounmpo rampaging to the rim. Open space matters only if someone can penetrate it, and no one has done so with more ruthless efficiency, more often, than Antetokounmpo. No one has been able to stop him. No gambit meant to exploit his shaky jumper has worked for any prolonged period. He is dribbling, and then he is spinning, and then he is at the rim screaming at you.

Antetokounmpo is an offense unto himself almost to the degree Harden is. He's averaging 28 points and six dimes on 58 percent shooting. He is Shaq, only he starts from 30 feet out. The insanity of Harden's point totals has almost obscured that Antetokounmpo is a phenomenal scorer in his own right.

He is not quite Harden as a scorer, or passer. Harden broke basketball with the step-back 3. He is unguardable. But the gap on offense, and between their rosters, is not big enough to trump the gap on defense.

Harden, even bringing elite post defense, is a minor liability the Rockets scheme around. Antetokounmpo is a weapon Milwaukee wields, and one opponents fear and avoid. He ranks sixth in rebounding, 10th in blocks and 31st in steals.

He impacts every possession, on both ends. On some nights, it feels as if he dictates every possession.

Harden is worthy, but Antetokounmpo gets this vote by a slim margin.

1. Giannis Antetokounmpo
2. James Harden
3. Paul George
4. Nikola Jokic
5. Damian Lillard

______________________

Most Improved Player
1. Pascal Siakam
2. D'Angelo Russell
3. De'Aaron Fox

Sixth Man of the Year
1. Lou Williams
2. Domantas Sabonis
3. Montrezl Harrell

Rookie of the Year
1. Luka Doncic
2. Trae Young
3. Jaren Jackson Jr.

Coach of the Year
1. Mike Budenholzer
2. Doc Rivers
3. Mike Malone

Defensive Player of the Year
1. Rudy Gobert
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo
3. Paul George​