NBA Week 3 Takeaways

Trouble in Milwaukee and Wemby's emergence headline Week 3

Change is imminent in Milwaukee

Since firing Adrian Griffin in late January despite his 30-13 record, the Bucks have gone 20-28 continuing into this season under Doc Rivers. Their 2-8 start has the Bucks searching for an answer, the clearest of all being a hard reset. 

The Bucks role players are not playing well. When Giannis and Lillard are the only players on your team to exceed 10 points, there is serious room for concern. The duo may be good for 60-70 points per game but in a league where the average is 113, something needs to change.

Another major concern with the Bucks is the inconsistency of Damian Lillard. Lillard has started the season exceptionally well, with 5 30+ point games, including a 41-point outing against the Cavaliers. However, his 4-point performance against Memphis embodies the inconsistency and scoring-based struggles the Bucks have faced since winning the championship in 2021. 

Giannis is playing some of the best basketball of his career, averaging 30/13/5 on 60% True Shooting, but the Bucks supporting cast simply cannot get the job done. 

There are two possible options for the Bucks: 

• Keep Giannis and trade every other piece to get him the help he needs, or

• Trade Giannis for a litany of picks and players, and begin to rebuild with a strong foundation.

As to which is the stronger option… I don’t think it is a good idea to let go of a player like Giannis, and accordingly, I think the Bucks’ best decision is to commit to the Greek Freak, fire Rivers, and trade Lillard, Middleton, and Portis for whatever they can get and hope it sticks. If the Bucks trade Giannis, whichever team receives him will become 15x more deadly - he is an incredible player who is being overused and wasted in Milwaukee.

Why the Knicks experiment is not working

Entering the 2024-25 season, the Knicks were a terrifying team on paper and expected to be one of the best teams in the league behind only the Celtics and perhaps the Thunder. Now, 9 games into the season and they sit at 4-5, dropping games they were heavily favoured in against the Rockets and the Hawks. Jalen Bruson is averaging 25 PPG on 58.2% true shooting, while Karl Anthony Towns is averaging 25 PPG on 65.3% true shooting. 

The issue starts with Mikal Bridges, who is currently averaging his lowest points since his first two seasons in the league. Once Bridges finds a way to be a more effective offensive weapon, I think the Knicks will hit a groove. The other big issue in New York is their depth - or rather lack thereof. Besides Miles McBride who is currently too inconsistent to rely upon, the Knicks are focusing solely on their starters to put up 110+ points per game. 

The silver lining for the Knicks is that they still sit in 5th place in the East, and while it isn’t where they want to be nor where they are expected to be, they are still only one game out from 3rd.

Being 10 games this season, I am still willing to put this slow start down to teething issues with a very new starting five, but if similar trends continue throughout the next few weeks of play there may be some concern that a mistake was made in separating a team which was so closely engrained to each other.

Demar DeRozan gets his moment in Sacramento

Since joining them this past off-season, Demar DeRozan has played a vital part in the Kings' solid start. Through cooperation with De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis, DeRozan has been a very reliable third option averaging 22/4/4, with a career-high 61% True Shooting to start the season. DeRozan’s solid start was capped off with a 34-point performance to help the Kings beat the Suns in an overtime home game. It’s his season-high in points and sets an extremely promising precedent for Kings fans. As we move further into the season and DeRozan becomes more comfortable in Sacramento, look for the Kings to solidify their place in playoff seeding.

Wembenyama is is heating up

After a somewhat stagnated start to the season offensively, averaging only 18 points through his first 9 games, his last 3 games have been 24 points against Utah, 34 against Sacramento, and a massive 50 points against Washington. The benefit of Wembenyama is that even when he was a lackluster offensive piece, he was still dominating on the defensive end. Wemby averages 10 rebounds per game, 4 blocks, and 1 steal. This performance could not have come at a better time; sadly it was announced that Greg Popovich recently suffered a stroke, and in the midst of this, it would’ve been easy for a team like Pop’s to capitulate. However, Wembenyama stepped up and has proved himself as someone who won’t shy away from high-pressure situations. If he continues to perform well offensively, this team may go on a significant run in the midseason stretch.