Dub Nation Rooting Guide ECSF: Milwaukee Bucks (3) vs. Brooklyn Nets (2). & Open Thread

Team Giannis vs NY's distant second favorite team

You can also read the complete Dub Nation Rooting Guide for Other Teams.

Dub Nation Speaks

• Backpack23 on May 27:

  Bucks for me. Would like to see Giannis be rewarded for staying in a small market franchise. Plus I’m always rooting for Jrue, that guy is an outstanding human.

• vignette17 on May 27

  I like Giannis' chance of taking out the JuggerNets more. If Miami loses, we've got a shot at Andre at vet min as they probably let him go. I suppose Khris Middleton might become available if the Bucks lose, but it's just too out there for me to root for it. 

• Klon on May 26

  Funnily enough I would've rooted for the Nets to win it all had they not added Harden. Nash is cool and getting a "proper" ring (I know he doesn't care that much for the one he "won" with us) would be neat, KD will always have my love and I always felt Kyrie Irving is extremely disrespected by the NBA community as a whole even though he was the second-biggest reason Cleveland won in 2016 (the first being Kiki Vandeweghe, obviously). With Harden, however, they can get yeeted as far as I am concerned.

• Nico Suave on May 26

  As much as I appreciate KD, I can't root for the Nets. They are a soulless killing machine that needs to be stopped.

  I find it funny that the New Yorkers seemed to have embraced the Knicks over the Nets based on the fact the Knicks games sold out in 20 minutes versus the Nets having to offer discounts to get people to their games. 

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…

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?

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.

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Brooklyn Nets

Ex-Warriors

• Kevin Durant. Honorary Warrior, but not quite Honorary Warrior For Life in the last election.

Warriors Villains 

• James Harden. We covered Harden’s case in detail before. in his election as Warriors Villain For Life. Rival and MVP obsessive, he blends supreme skill with the cheapest possible tactics, with his absurd talents getting overshadowed by dangerous hooks and constant foul-baiting and the general sense that he constantly exploits loopholes in the rulebook.  
  
  But, he also lost constantly to the Warriors providing them with many of their greatest victories. He also forced his way out of Houston in a very ugly fashion, virtually putting on a fat suit and partying in COVID clubs to tank his value as much as possible. And though it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving owner, it was damn disrespectful to his coach and teammates who seem to be pretty upright characters.

• Blake Griffin. Essential part of the rival Lob City Clippers, as their most punchable face. We studied that rivalry before in detail, but by now feelings have cooled as Blake’s career took a nose-dive due to injuries and bad teams. Last year, a healthy plurality of Dub Nation still wished him ill, but even more just plain don’t care and so he does NOT officially qualify for Warriors Villain. 

Petty Rivalries

• Kyrie Irving. Hit the Finals-winning shot in 2016, then forced his way out of Cleveland to get away from all the LeBron-stan reporters wanting him to appreciate LeBron’s being his father figure(?!?!), got more of a reputation as a team-killer by joining a strong Celtics team and dragging it down, perplexed everyone with his dedication/trolling about flat-earth crackpotism, conspired with KD to form a superteam with the Nets. 
  
  Kyrie also stepped on Lucky!! He insulted the imaginary mascot of Boston and apparently triggered the removal of Danny Ainge as GM and Brad Stevens as Coach. I don’t know… this is kind of a point in his favor in my book.

• Jeff Green is like a supernova of neutrinos, eventually passing through every team and always just on the verge of a breakout season but being hard to detect. Naturally, he was a member of numerous Warriors playoff opponents. However, I don’t believe he ever had a game turning play, so how mad can we be at him?

• DeAndre Jordan. Now in his declining years, he was part of the Lob City Clippers, but was the least annoying prominent face. We studied that rivalry throughly before and found Dub Nation mostly didn’t care about DAJ. Past efforts by the front office to get DAJ resulted in stupid cap moves including losing Jeremy Lin. He also encouraged KD to leave the path of light to form the Jugger-Nets.

Team Grudges

• Another mercenary grab bag of stars, setting up shop in a town, strip-mining it for resources, overwhelming the playoffs with accumulated talent. Following the LeBron playbook so far, will the stars soon leave town once the mine goes dry, leaving it a smoking toxic hellhole? Only time will tell.

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… so, who are you rooting for?

Hmm, team of great guys versus ultra-talented ultra-sensitive mercenary pickup squad. Let’s Go Bu-ucks CLAP CLAP clap clap clap