by Brett Koremenos
Never a dull moment.
For periods of the NBA off-season, it looked as though the Damian Lillard saga would be more bluster than bite. Even at the start of this month, the Miami Heat’s lack of assets created something of a stalemate that would eventually see the season start with Lillard in his familiar Trail Blazer uniform. Now the news has broken that the seven-time All-Star is headed east, but not to South Beach.
In a trade of this magnitude, the ripples affect every corner of the league. Sure the fate of the Phoenix and Portland franchises are now altered, but in reality this deal matters far more for Lilllard’s new team: the Milwaukee Bucks. In one afternoon, the Bucks moved from a crumbling contender whose star player was hinting about an exit, to the betting markets favorite for a title. So while conversations can be had about the rest of the NBA in a post-Lillard trade world, the only one that seems to matter is in Milwaukee.
That discussion begins with the key swap placed in the middle of all the draft picks and ancillary players — change of Jrue Holiday for Lillard as the Bucks starting point guard. Holiday and Lilllard are almost antithetical players, with the former being one of the league’s stoutest defenders with an erratic offensive game while the latter shoulders a high volume of shot creation with ease while being, let’s just say, less than engaged on the defensive side of the ball.
While it’s still tricky to pin down markers about an individual’s contribution to defense, especially a perimeter player, Holiday’s impact can probably be quantified in his five selection’s to the NBA All-Defense team. Not only that, Holiday played 2,183 minutes for the league’s seventh best defense, per our SQ database. Holiday also combined with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Brook Lopez to help the Bucks to the lowest Rim-&-3 rate allowed in the NBA last season:
Of course the reason Milwaukee felt the need to make such a major move is because, despite Holiday’s defensive presence, Miami went on (sorry for the pun) a heater and eliminated the Bucks in five games. It’s definitely an exercise in futility to try to divine the psyche of Milwaukee’s front office, but the fact their defense got blasted apart by Miami in the first round had to factor into the Lillard dice roll. If teams are going to over perform against the Bucks defense — and the Heat exceeded SQ’s expected point total in all five playoff games — the best way to avoid elimination is to score more yourself. Lillard offers that ceiling, while Holiday doesn’t.
Lillard becomes Milwaukee’s defacto number one option, a three-level scorer without the Achilles heel Antetokounmpo has as a shooter. In fact, Lillard has enough clout that Antetokounmpo may be far more willing to accept a role off the ball as a screener or cutter, something that could be devastating for opposing defenses, especially in the playoffs. Just look at the difference in production for Milwaukee’s giant Greek star:
This is a factor of the trade that not even our SQ database can model, the presence of Lillard. While Holiday and Khris Middleton are certainly great players respected by Antetokounmpo, they’re not viewed in the same light as Lillard. In late game situations, it was more than likely Antetokounmpo would look to get his hands on the ball and be forced into suboptimal shots like the ones above, especially in the playoffs when defenses would be more inclined to wall off the paint and dare the Bucks superstar to shoot over them. And in that light, even Giannis’ worst action without the ball — a catch-and-shoot 3 — produces better results than his best action with it.
This dynamic might outweigh some of the cost to Milwaukee’s overall foundation. During the regular season, the Bucks, especially when light a core contributor, might experience some ugly nights, especially defensively. This will be quite a contrast from the Mike Budenholzer era where his teams were like card counters at the blackjack table, focusing on winning at the margins over the long haul. That led to some gaudy regular season success, but with the exception of one season, the playoffs that followed ended in disappointment. This Lillard-led squad will be flawed, but perhaps excel in the high leverage postseason moments that often led to the Bucks undoing.
But as much as this trade is about Lillard’s contributions, Milwaukee unfortunately can’t just plug and play around him. The pressure will be on new head coach Adrian Griffin to sort out how to best utilize the supporting cast around his new dynamic duo. Holiday’s presence as a point-of-attack defender leaves a gaping hole in the team’s backcourt rotation.
Filling out that rotation around Lillard and Antetokounmpo will be tricky given that dynamic, especially when it comes to Middleton’s role. Injuries limited Middleton to just 33 games and he’s certainly going to be slowed as both a wing defender and shot creator. Managing his minutes as well as finding a balance to keep two of Milwaukee’s three core creators — Middleton, Antetokounmpo and Lillard — isn’t going to be easy by just shoving all three in the starting lineup. A bench role has to be one of the early discussions surrounding Middleton.
That means an increased role for several players that may be less than inspiring. Veterans Malik Beasley and Pat Connaughton are solid, but unspectacular catch-and-shoot specialists as the SQ database has the majority of their shot types being guarded or unguarded catch-and-shoot 3’s. Bobby Portis should be a constant and roll with perhaps some “super big” lineups featuring Giannis and Brook Lopez, but after that it’s just a string of unproven young players.
By bringing Damian Lillard to Milwaukee, the Bucks certainly changed their calculations. A team with a known floor and frustrating ceiling may have just lowered the former while raising the latter. But even as a data company, we know that numbers can only tell us half the story. We’ll find out where this voyage winds up when Milwaukee takes the court with their new floor captain in just under a month.