So you replace a scoring-only, no-defense guy in Jabari Parker with a slightly less potent scorer, but significantly more capable defender in Khris Middleton, and the Bucks suddenly start to win games (five in a row now, the tank is unsalvageable). I love Jabari just as much as everybody else, but now that he’s dead we can be honest with ourselves: he doesn’t contribute as much to winning basketball as Kha$h Money Middleton does. Obviously, in an ideal world, the Bucks would have both Parker AND Middleton available, and perhaps with those two guys playing off Giannis, the Bucks would look even better than they do now.
But this isn’t an ideal world. This is a world filled with cruelty and pain and anguish. Fate has decreed that we don’t get to see the CORE of Giannis/Jabari/Khris try to make noise in the playoffs this year.
Since I already spent some time hating on Jabari, I’m going to throw in a little nugget about Khris just so I don’t get accused of playing favorites: he had seven turnovers in this game. Seven! Some of them were pretty bad too. Unfortunately, the only way I’m ever going to show turnovers is if somebody gets a quadruple-double with turnovers as one of the categories. And given the scrubs that I’m forced to represent on my channel, the chances of that ever happening are extremely remote.