Let's move to the Central Division. We'll start with the Milwaukee Bucks. Milwaukee Bucks get a solid C.
Not a C plus, not a C minus, but a C.
They have the third best record in the East, but I think probably the most disappointing team in the division.
If the Pistons did not exist.
They have almost the entire year, with the exception of seven games, been lacking Chris Middleton. When they did have Chris Middleton for those seven games, he looked like Doo doo.
He looked horrible. It's never a good sign.
May They asked Chris Middleton about his time that he has been missing, and what I found to be very strange is uh that some people close to Chris Middleton have said that Chris Middleton's knee injuries will continue to persist and continue to be a problem, and they've always been a problem. Who are those people close to Chris Middleton. Chris Middleton, this is what he said. I've always had knee issues since college.
When I tour my meniscus.
That was one of the reasons why my stock in the draft dropped lower because I was coming off of a meniscus injury that a lot of people didn't trust.
It.
It's been great for me so far. What I'm going through now normally happens during the off season when nobody hears that.
My knee is swollen.
I still work out. Rest doesn't do it any good. It's just building it back slowly. What so, Chris Middleton, you would imagine telling on himself probably not the best strategy unless he's like, I don't know, locked down for the next five years. It's like, Oh, I'm under team control, guaranteed contracts, bitch, I'm just gonna tell you that my knees swollen twenty four to seven. Wait, let me look and see when his contract ends.
What next year?
Twenty twenty four, he's a free agent, and he had missed having knee pain and knee swelling. Since calling, He's had only played seven games and largely been unproductive. I would say for the Milwaukee Bucks, that is a big red flag. That's about as big red flag for a wing as you could get. The rest of the Bucks not giving me much hope either. Giannis all of a sudden missing games, not just load management games. This is his fourth straight game that he's missed as of today.
He hyper extended his left knee in the Eastern Conference Finals two years back, and now it's the same knee that's giving him problems that he played through when they won the title. I don't know about that. This team feels like a hospital wing to me. Drew Holliday has missed time, Grayson Allen has missed time, Chris Middleton has missed time. Two years ago, Brook Lopez had back surgery, So that gives me a little bit of pause. My man, Sergebaka isn't playing basketball that I had to look.
Him up because he's been so irrelevant.
The only thing that I know of Sergebaka doing is YouTube videos eating bowl penises. He used to be one of the best room protectors in the league and now he just makes other NBA players admit things while eating weird foods.
So yeah, I give them a very low grade in my mind.
I've always said that the Milwaukee Bucks were healthy, they were unbeatable, But the question is that actually true anymore?
Has the window closed? Like?
Should we be worrying when Giannis and Chris Middleton both aren't healthy, Andrew Holliday hasn't been healthy, The core three not fully healthy? I can't tell without a rescue line at the trade deadline. The window very much might be closing soon.
Indiana Pacers A minus.
This is maybe the biggest surprise in the Eastern Conference, maybe the biggest surprise in the entire NBA. I saw the Sacramento Kings coming. What I did not see coming was the Pacers, and they are fun. Everybody thought that the Pacers were gonna be a lottery team. Even the Pacers thought they were gonna be a lottery team. The Pacers told the world at Summer League, we're in the sweepstakes for Victor wamba Yama. Let me tell you this, they are not. They are not even close to getting
Victor Wambanyama. They are in eighth place right now twenty three and twenty one, and they've.
Had injuries too.
They're doing all this with guys out of the lineup, like Miles Turner, like Tyrese Halliburton. D'orte has missed twenty two games. But Tyrese Halliburton is now becoming one of the best playmakers in the league, making that Sabonis trade look beneficial for very much both sides. He's consistently getting double digitusists per game. He's scoring twenty four forty, just massive numbers on a night to night basis. And oh
did I mention Ben Maturin? Akaa, Ben Mattherin is averaging over seventeen a game as a rookie coming off the fucking bench.
Can they keep this up? I don't know. I think so. But they're probably gonna have to pay Miles Turner now.
They're probably gonna have to pay Buddy Heel now, or they're gonna trade him for a boatload of assets to some aspiring team like the Milwaukee Bucks that want to win a title and get a lot in return. Keith Smith that spow Track wrote a piece about a month ago about how the Pacers are looking to lock Myles Turner up for an extension, and he said, no, so who knows. But they have been largely excellent all year. This is a very fun team. Not something I thought I would be saying.
Chicago Bulls c minus.
Yeah, they are in crisis mode, aren't they. We talked about it recently, We've talked about them all year, and not in good terms. Right, they are just not very fun. Everybody on the bull seems to be ready for a blow up, right, Like Lonzo Ball just gave an interview today where he said whether he would even play the rest of the season. You've got the Bulls taking on insurance policies in case Ball doesn't play basketball ever again, covering eighty million dollars left on his contract. You got
Zach Lavine, who hates everybody on his team. He's taking mid range twos with four seconds left to go down three, very much trying to lose that game. Billy Donovan hated by everybody. DeMar DeRozan the only bright spot on this team, but he's had injury issues as well. Is there anything to like about this team? Is there anything fun?
Well, I guess Alex Caruso is fun. But that's it. They could be beating anyone on any.
Given night, and they could be beaten by anyone on any given night. I don't know what to make of them. I don't know if they're gonna be sellers. I don't know if they're gonna be buyers. Every time they tank and everybody thinks, okay, it's a blow it up scenario, they win five, and then.
It's like, I don't know.
Now, the delusional Chicago fan base is getting excited again. They are a C student. They barely show up the class. When they show up the class, they fall asleep, and then all of a sudden, on a random Tuesday, they have intelligent questions and they have thoughts and notes and poignant pieces of knowledge to share that maybe nobody in the class has ever thought about before.
But that happens like literally when the blue moon is.
Out, as you have to start talking about the Cavs through the Dawnovan Mitchell lens He's incredible. He's the most dramatically different player from last year to this year that I've seen from a superstar.
Just changing teams.
He's increased how many threes he takes per game. He's taking sometimes ten threes a game. He would take three, four five threes a game in Utah. The way that they play is really beneficial to him. He's bouncier, he's faster, he's quicker, he's just got it. He's just so fun and this trade looks amazing for the Cavaliers.
They just do.
He's playing defense now, clearly something that he did on purpose to Utah to say, you know what, fuck ERU to Gobert, I'm not gonna play defense.
Because why because you guys have a two time defensive player of the year. He can handle it, you know what, Let him do it.
And the one thing that's strange I think that's holding the Cavs season back is Evan Mobley.
Evan Mobley has regressed.
He's not the player that he was when everybody thought he would.
Be the rookie of the Year. And I think that's something.
That's gonna take time for him to figure out his role, because I think he can be an all NBA kind of a guy.
I think he's got all the tools. I think he's got a great attitude.
But their fifth place standing a half game out of third, pretty much expecting where I would think they would finish right right in the slot, maybe fourth, maybe fifth, maybe third somewhere in there. You add in Garland, who has missed time with his own eye injury. You now get Ricky Rubio back though to counteract that, and then you know you've got Mobley and Jared on the front line. And all they need really is a wing, a good solid wing to get rid of a coro's ass and
find somebody competent that can play three. If that is the case, If they do that at the deadline, what they really need is LORI marketing back.
They could be very, very dangerous Detroit Pistons. They get a D plus. That stinks. I like so much. I wanted to give him a C minus. I just couldn't. They What are they right now?
Record wise? It's not great. They're twelve and thirty five. You can't give somebody a C plus when they're twelve and thirty five.
But they're fun, right Like, they're.
A team that you enjoy watching on a night to night basis. They compete and lose, same kind of thing as they did last year, same kind of thing as they did two years ago. This year, Cad Cunningham gets hurt. He goes out for the rest of the year. That's a big setback.
They weren't gangbusters when he was playing.
But I tell you what, you're not gonna win many games when the number one overall pick is down for the year with a strange injury, right, and now you don't get to develop chemistry with Ja n Ivy, the rookie, you know, Jalen Duran, he's not finding time with Cad. So it's just another wasted year of a rebuild. And you wonder, does Sadik Bay now get moved. What do
we do with Bogdanovic? Did they really want Bogdanovich to begin with or is he just an asset that they locked up long term to be a valuable trade piece in the future. So this team's probably headed for another high lottery pick. They will consistently be athletic, they will consistently be fun, they will play hard for Dwayne Casey, and they will be extremely watchable. But they will not win games, and unfortunately, the off season has been a bit of a wash.