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:

Alykhan Bijani @Rockets_Insider

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…

2:38 PM ∙ Feb 28, 2020

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1,240Likes523Retweets

So the poll results were very friendly to the reigning MVP.

Eric Apricot @EricApricot

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?

9:15 PM ∙ Feb 23, 2020

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.

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