Dub Nation Rooting Guide #3. Milwaukee Bucks (3) vs. Miami Heat (6). & Open Thread
The Battle of Dubs Fans and Dub Alums
Milwaukee Bucks
Ex-Warriors
None, I think?
Friends
Jrue Holiday. Hard working, great defender, two-way talent. Fierce rival, but also a big public fan of Stephen Curry.
Giannis Antetokounmpo. He and Stephen Curry regularly pick each other first in All-Star games. Make googly eyes and godly plays together.
From Giannis’s Honorary Warrior For Life election (he fell short):
Dub Nation has been pining for this MVP to bolt Milwaukee and join the Warriors. We also have a soft spot for him for picking Stephen Curry first when he was All-Star captain, which Steph rewarded with this absurd alley-oop.
Giannis has also been openly humble about his MVP case, claiming not to care about it, in stark contrast to certain other bearded players who are obsessed with MVP. In fact, Giannis has been taking jabs at Harden and Harden has been taking bigger jabs back. Here’s the latest round from today:
James Harden addresses the comments Giannis made during the All-Star draft about assists: "I average more assists him than him, I think....I don't see what the joke is." Later: "But I wish I could just run and be 7 feet and just dunk." youtube.com/watch?v=tUCf4p…So the poll results were very friendly to the reigning MVP.
Poll. Dub Nation, imagine you see Giannis Antetokounmpo in a game with no practical implications for the Warriors. (So not against GSW, ignore draft picks, playoff seeding, etc.) Do you want him to do well or poorly?Well 73.4% / Poor 4.6% / Don’t care either way 20.2% / Don’t know who they are 1.7%.
Dub Nation has lots of affection for the Greek Freak, but he falls juuuust short of the 75% mark. He is hereby awarded Honorary Warrior.
Warriors Villains
Petty Rivalries
P.J. Tucker. Underhyped crucial part of the Houston threat to the Dynasty Warriors. His great defense wore down KD and his timely three-point shooting helped bring GSW to the edge. Not sure anyone has bad feelings about him.
Mike Budenholzer. Runs interesting offenses, and the worst can be said is that his teams keep falling short in the playoffs. First, the Atlanta Hawks didn’t make LeBron even break a sweat in 2016 and 2017 allowing him to coast to the Finals. Second, the Bucks dropped the ball against the Raptors in 2019 allowing that bad matchup through against the Warriors in the Finals.
Team Grudges
Not sure who hates the Bucks, as they didn’t win a playoff series from 2002 to 2018, and now have disappointed in two straight playoffs.
Miami Heat
Ex-Warriors
Andre Iguodala. The second highest score in the Honorary Warriors For Life elections.
Kendrick Nunn. One that got away. The Warriors had him in 2018, but let him get away for complex reasons that we examined in detail before.
Dewayne Dedmon. Was with the Santa Cruz Warriors and has bounced around since. But he’s been the dream of the cheap competent big man that has beguiled the Warriors all franchise-long.
Friends
Jimmy Butler. Famously couldn’t get along with the Minnesota Timberwolves management, couldn’t get the most out of Andrew Wiggins through tough love, and caused so much chaos that it forced trades and moves that put MIN in such a dreadful position that MIN had to make a big move to keep Karl-Anthony Towns from leaving. So Butler indirectly got MIN to overpay Andrew Wiggins and this year’s famous Top 3 protected draft pick for KAT’s pal D’Angelo Russell. Thanks, Jimmy.
Warriors Villains
Trevor Ariza. Haven’t gotten around to writing about him yet, but he keeps injuring Warriors.
Petty Rivalries
Who am I forgetting?
Team Grudges
They did have the annoying LeBron / Wade / Bosh Super Friends team, but that one underperformed enough to make them less annoying. And it turns out Dwyane Wade has been pretty cool in retirement, and they also got dumped by LeBron after he strip-mined the town, so it’s hard to hold a grudge. They also gave the Lakers a scare last year despite a rash of Heat injures.
… so, who are you rooting for?
I don’t think I have a preference. I wouldn’t mind either team winning it all and I’m not sure which team has the best chance to stop the more annoying teams.
I've been looking for someone with a similar draft profile to Davion Mitchell drafted in the first round and I saw this quote from Sam Vecenie, posted on r/warriors, credit to u/trackandfieldstar:
> "A bit less obvious, but understandable. Because the college basketball season is not actually all that long, track record over time is an incredibly important input when it comes to evaluating shooters. Has this guy been good over a large sample of shots? For instance, Kris Dunn made 38 percent of his 3-pointers at Providence in his fourth year but over the previous three was not a particularly good shooter. He has not shot it at the NBA level. In Dunn’s case, it would have been smart to look at his shooting with some skepticism, given the lack of a long track record. Tulane’s Melvin Frazier worked his way into getting drafted by hitting 38.5 percent of his 3s in his junior year at Tulane. But over his previous two years, he hit under 29 percent. Which number do you believe? ......... One player this effects this season is Davion Mitchell. Mitchell does not place on this list despite the fact that he is making 47.4 percent of his 3-point attempts. Why? Because his track record as a shooter prior to this year is terrible. He made 28 percent of his 3s as a freshman at Auburn, then just 32 percent from 3 as a sophomore last year at Baylor. Should we be into his spike on under 100 3-point attempts and put him into the class of elite shooters? I don’t think there is necessarily a right or wrong answer. If you placed him here, I’d get it. He might turn into a legit 40 percent 3-point shooter given the leap he’s taken this year, but I’m just not quite sure I totally buy him as an elite one."
Pretty sure this was said during the season as Mitchell ended with 141 attempts.
Kris Dunn never shot above 70% from the free throw line in college, like Mitchell. Dunn was 22 years old when drafted, like Mitchell. Dunn was 6'3 with a 6'9 wingspan, compared to Mitchell's 6'2 with a 6'5 wingspan. Dunn had more rebounds, assists, and steals per 40 minutes than Mitchell. To be fair to Mitchell, his one good 3 point shooting season had him at 44% from three, whereas Dunn was only at 37%.
For his career, Dunn is at 31% from three and 73% from the free throw line. Dunn would be a solid addition to the Warriors, but would you trade the Wolves pick or Warriors' lottery pick for him? Freshman PG Jamal Murray was taken two slots after him in 2016, that's the risk you take when you select for "NBA readiness" in the lottery.
Perhaps Mitchell's shooting improvement is 100% real, but I wouldn't want the Warriors to be the team to take the gamble on that.
It's probably telling, but I'm not really rooting /for/ any of the remaining teams. Maybe Milwaukee and Denver? There are teams I'm rooting against -- Nets, Clippers, Lakers, Suns.