Central Division Shakeups: Bucks and Pacers Make Big Changes
Before this season began, the Milwaukee Bucks were viewed as championship contenders, while the Indiana Pacers looked like a team that would be fighting to qualify for the Play-In Tournament. As this season reaches the halfway mark, the Bucks have the second best record in the Eastern Conference, but their shaky defense--they rank 16th in the NBA in defensive field goal percentage and 25th in points allowed--is cause for concern; the Pacers are tied for the sixth best record in the Eastern Conference, but they have dominated the Bucks head to head (4-1, including a win in the NBA Cup en route to making it to the NBA Cup Championship Game), and their dynamic point guard Tyrese Haliburton is having a breakout season with career-high averages in scoring (23.6 ppg) and assists (12.6 apg, first in the league).
The won-loss records suggest that both teams are who we thought they were, but the perception is that the Bucks are not meeting expectations while the Pacers are exceeding expectations--and those perceptions led both teams to shake up the status quo: the Pacers acquired two-time All-NBA selection/two-time All-Star Pascal Siakam from Toronto in exchange for Bruce Brown, Jordan Nwora, and three first round draft picks; the Bucks fired first year head coach Adrian Griffin, and will reportedly replace Griffin with Doc Rivers.
The Pacers' front office is excited enough about what their young team has shown thus far to believe that it is worthwhile to give up three first round draft picks and solid rotation player Brown to add a veteran All-Star; that is not a move made by a team that is satisfied with making it to the Play-In Tournament: the Pacers think that adding Siakam to their rotation is enough to lift them to at least the top four in the Eastern Conference, and presumably they also think that they can persuade Siakam to re-sign with them in the offseason when Siakam becomes a free agent.
Siakam was the second best player behind Kawhi Leonard on Toronto's 2019 championship team, but Leonard joined the L.A. Clippers after that season and with Siakam as the first option the Raptors won just one playoff series since 2019. Siakam is an excellent scorer, rebounder, playmaker, and defender but--like many very good but not great players--he may be better suited to the second option role than the lead role. That may work out fine for the Pacers, because Haliburton seems to have the temperament to fill the lead role.
There is no question that the Pacers are better with the addition of Siakam. Are they good enough to beat Boston, Milwaukee, or Philadelphia in a playoff series? The 76ers have been a shaky playoff team throughout the Joel Embiid era. Maybe Coach Nick Nurse will change that in his first season with the 76ers, but the Pacers have good reason to think that they can compete versus the 76ers. The Bucks lack stability and a defensive identity; they have perhaps the best all-around player in the NBA--two-time regular season MVP and 2021 NBA Finals MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo--but the Pacers have proven this season that they match up well with the Bucks even before adding Siakam to the mix. The Celtics are the team to beat in the East. The two possible stumbling blocks for the Celtics are injuries (which could affect any team), and their stated goal of jacking up 50 three point shots per game; if the Celtics stay healthy and do not abandon the midrange game and the inside game then they will win the Eastern Conference.
I would not pick the Pacers to win the Eastern Conference at this point, but it is reasonable for them to believe that they are close enough to contender status that it is worthwhile to give up future assets (draft picks) to obtain an established All-Star who could help them win multiple playoff series this year.
While the Pacers are optimistic, the Bucks appear to be in panic mode as they hire their third coach in eight months: last May they fired Mike Budenholzer, who led the Bucks to the 2021 NBA title, and now they are parting ways with Griffin, who had no head coaching experience prior to joining the Bucks. According to published reports, Doc Rivers was not on the Bucks' short list last summer. Hiring a coach who has no head coaching experience only to fire him halfway into the season and then replace him with a coach who was not seriously considered for the job just a few months ago smacks of both desperation and disorganization.
Nevertheless, hiring Rivers now makes a lot more sense than hiring Griffin last summer. Rivers is an established NBA coach and proven winner. It was not clear last summer--and is even less clear now--why anyone thought that Griffin could lead the Bucks to a championship. Don't be fooled by the Bucks' record, which has been achieved versus weak teams; their second half of the season schedule is much tougher, and Griffin's bend before breaking defense would have collapsed versus strong competition.
Media coverage and analysis of coaching is even worse than media coverage of sports in general, so the Bucks' hiring of Rivers will undoubtedly unleash a cascade of articles declaring that Rivers is an awful coach. As part of the NBA's 75th anniversary celebration, Rivers was selected as one of the 15 greatest NBA coaches of all-time; those 15 coaches were selected by a panel of 43 current and former coaches, with no media members participating in the voting. I do not rank Rivers quite that highly, but the record shows that Rivers is an exceptional coach who has proven that he can do well with teams that lack talent (he won the 2000 Coach of the Year award with the "Heart and Hustle" Orlando Magic) and he can do well with teams that are stacked with talent (he led the Boston Celtics to the 2008 NBA title). It is true that Rivers has lost more game sevens and squandered more 3-1 leads than any coach in NBA history; did he set those marks because of his poor decisions, or because those teams relied on players who established a track record--before and after playing for Rivers--of disappearing in big moments? It is true that Rivers never won a championship despite coaching (with various teams) Tracy McGrady, Blake Griffin, Chris Paul, James Harden, and Joel Embiid--but no one else has won a championship with those guys, either. McGrady never won a playoff series until he sat on the bench late in his career with the 2013 Spurs. Griffin never won an NBA title and is not currently with an NBA team. I am willing to bet that Paul and Harden will never win a championship as the first or second option (and possibly not as the third option, either). I am not yet willing to bet that Embiid never wins a championship as the best player on his team, but I think that it is more likely than not that he will end his career without winning a title: there is no indication up to this point in his career that he can or will be "the guy" during a championship run, regardless of how gaudy his regular season numbers are.
With the Bucks, Rivers has proven championship-winning players--including Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton, Brook Lopez, and Bobby Portis--but he also has Lillard, whose indifferent at best defense is reminiscent of Harden and whose thin playoff resume is much like the playoff resumes of Paul, Harden, and Embiid. Rivers' first and most important task is to get the championship core players to buy into his offensive and defensive game plans. His second task is to figure out how to either (1) influence Lillard to show some interest in playing defense or (2) schematically cover up for Lillard's defensive deficiencies. With Antetokounmpo leading the way and Lillard's defensive shortcomings minimized, the Bucks have enough to win the Eastern Conference and be a formidable Finals opponent for whoever wins the Western Conference.
Labels: Adrian Griffin, Damian Lillard, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Indiana Pacers, Milwaukee Bucks, Pascal Siakam, Tyrese Haliburton
posted by David Friedman @ 1:14 PM
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