EASTERN CONFERENCE CENTRAL DIVISION Milwaukee While there weren’t very many people who had high hopes for the Milwaukee Bucks as contenders last year, it was hard to imagine just how bad they would be. There were plenty of players the Bucks could point to as rising talents: Larry Sanders, Ersan Ilyasova and John Henson among them. Milwaukee didn’t have any true superstars, but the idea that they could make the Eastern Conference playoffs didn’t seem far-fetched. As it turned out, in a league with a bunch of teams tanking for draft picks, it was Milwaukee who finished with the League’s worst record at 15-67. Sanders was injured and involved in multiple incidents off the court. Ilyasova was also injured and not the same player when he was in the lineup. Offseason acquisitions didn’t work. The result was a team that was a total mess on both ends of the court and an overall disaster. Defense Silver linings are hard to find from the Milwaukee season last year. One of them is obviously the selection of Jabari Parker with the second overall pick. Another was the play of rookies Nate Wolters and Giannis Antetokounmpo. Wolters improbably finished with the fifth highest defensive Real-Plus Minus rating among NBA point guards last year at +1.57. Antetokounmpo is an extremely young player with a lot of promise, but he was equal parts talented and raw last season. The best overall defender on the Bucks is Sanders, a lean big man with tremendous athleticism and superb shotblocking ability. However, Sanders is known for having a short temper, a personality trait that really hurt him last year. Sanders tore a ligament in his thumb during a nightclub altercation last year; that and a fractured orbital suffered against James Harden limited him to just 584 minutes, effectively taking Milwaukee’s best defender out of their rotation. The remaining players simply were not good. John Henson had a STARTERS G Brandon Knight G Jared Dudley C Larry Sanders F Ersan Ilyasova F Jabari Parker BENCH F Giannis Antetokounmpo G Jerryd Bayless C John Henson F Damien Inglis G O.J. Mayo F Khris Middleton C Zaza Pachulia F Johnny O’Bryant G Nate Wolters Giannis Antetokounmpo
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