Milwaukee Bucks: 5 reasons Jabari Parker’s return Friday will help
1. Milwaukee’s best players have never all played together
Last season the Milwaukee Bucks seemed to be a cursed team, with Khris Middleton going down to a gruesome hamstring tear prior to the start of the season. Then four months later, the same game where Middleton returned saw Parker fall to the court in agony, suffering his second knee injury in three years. While the team rallied to make the postseason, their ceiling was capped without a full arsenal of talent available.
The combination of Antetokounmpo, Parker and Middleton has not played a full game together since April of 2016. All three have made significant leaps in skill and ability since then. Add in Eric Bledsoe and this team has a huge level of untapped potential.
The most fascinating question is how to deploy that quartet together. Should the Bucks go big, putting in the rim-protecting John Henson and slide Middleton and Antetokounmpo up a slot to the 2 and 3 respectively? Or should they slide down, inserting either Brogdon or Snell at the 2 and putting Antetokounmpo at the 5?
However the team decides to deploy its best players, the Bucks can now ensure the court is never without one or even two of its best players. Much as the Golden State Warriors stagger a rotation where two of their four All-Stars are on the court at all times, the Bucks can ensure two of their Big 4 are always playing. With Parker coming off the bench to start, this will be even easier to ensure.
In the end Jabari Parker is not a returning superstar, and it remains to be seen how much the team improves once he is added back in. Parker’s last stint with the team saw them struggle to stay in the playoff picture — but that was without the help of Middleton and Bledsoe.
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Starting Friday, the Bucks will have one more option available to help shore up the problem areas and set this team more firmly on the path to success. Now they can move to addressing their center rotation; perhaps Kareem still has a few drops left in the tank?