This video is an example of what learned people in basketball circles call “showcasing a player for a trade”. The Bucks already did this once with Miles Plumlee; they started him in one game and he put up decent stats, and then they traded the bum to the Hornets (my heart rate is still elevated from that one). Now, there’s rumors swirling around Henson (allegedly there are teams willing to give up expirings for him), so what better way to wring more assets out of those teams than to start him against the Nuggets?
Keep in mind that in the Bucks’ five games before this one, Henson was a healthy scratch in four of them. The other one might as well have been a DNP since he only get seven minutes. And then against the Nuggets he played thirty minutes as the starter. This is perhaps the most blatant case of player showcasing that I can remember, and you would think that opposing GMs would never fall for it, but like Cho fell for it in Charlotte, some other foolish GM will fall for Henson’s good game and be tricked into maybe giving up a pick or something for him.
I don’t even particularly want Henson to be traded since he is a talented player that never gets used correctly. He needs pick and rolls and he needs post touches. He doesn’t need to get elbow touches where he has no idea what to do with the ball (which is all the Bucks seem to be able to do with him). Since I don’t care about defense, that means I can just ignore the fact that he is outmuscled on a nightly basis by anyone and everyone taller than 6’4″. Plus he likes Chipotle. He’s an everyman’s kind of player.