Greg Monroe and the Bucks deal with the curse of unmet expectations

BOSTON -- Greg Monroe scored 20 points and shot 9-for-13 on Thursday night against the Celtics. If he wasn’t the best player on the floor, he certainly was during stretches of the fourth quarter when the Bucks erased a double-digit deficit and got back in the game.

Much like an earlier February game against the Celtics when Monroe scored 29 points and carried Milwaukee through the fourth quarter, the C’s didn’t have an an effective counter for Moose. He passed well out of double teams and ate up defenders whenever he got prime post position, which was often.

The difference was that in Milwaukee the Bucks had a big lead and used Monroe as a closer. In Thursday’s game the Bucks were the ones doing the chasing. The Celtics had already built a sizable lead thanks to an initial surge that occurred in the game’s opening minutes when Monroe was on the bench.

The Bucks’ big free agent acquisition is a sixth man at the moment, which seems like a demotion in theory but in practice has been a nice lineup adjustment by coach Jason Kidd. With key reserves such as Jerryd Bayless and John Henson out with injuries, Kidd shuffled the deck by starting Miles Plumlee and O.J. Mayo in place of Monroe and Michael Carter-Williams. The move may not be permanent. Kidd hinted that he may switch the lineup back when some of the injured players return, but he offered no promises either way.

"Our bench has gotten better with Michael and Moose," Kidd said. "You start those two and our bench gets really thin. With those two guys being unselfish and knowing that they want to start, and we all know they do, for the betterment of the team right now we need those guys to come off the bench."

There are lots of other reasons for the switch. Jabari Parker has played exceptionally well since the All-Star break and Giannis Antetokounmpo is basically running the point, two developments that are crucial to Milwaukee’s long-term plans. There are numbers that indicate that Parker and Giannis play better without Monroe. The Bucks’ defense -- Thursday night notwithstanding -- has also been tremendous since Kidd made the change and they had won four of five.

"That’s for you guys," Kidd said when asked how Monroe has adjusted to the role. "You guys are into all the stats and stuff. You tell me. I don’t think his stats have changed. I don’t think there’s been that much of a dropoff. The biggest stat that’s increased is winning."

Kidd’s right. Monroe’s numbers haven’t really changed in the reserve role. He’s still getting his share of points, shots and minutes. His low-post game has always been effective no matter the circumstances and now he has the added benefit of working against backup bigs. Monroe has also been a consummate pro about the situation.

"That’s kind of like childish or elementary to me, when you talk about who’s starting," Monroe told me after the team’s shootaround. "It’s really not that big of a deal. As long as I play and contribute while I’m on the floor, that’s what matters."

Context and expectations are everything in this league and both are crucial to understanding what’s happened to the Bucks and Monroe. Milwaukee came into the season with great hopes after last year’s surprising surge from league worst to a feisty playoff appearance. With a prime free agent like Monroe on board, external expectations were raised to an uncomfortable, and so far unattainable, level.

"Everybody has their opinion until you play on the floor," Kidd said. "Whether those expectations are right or wrong, I think it’s a great lesson learned for your young kids to be in that situation because they’re going to be in that again."

If the Bucks had followed a more natural evolutionary arc, we’d have a much different feeling about their season. If they had won say, 30 games last season instead of 41, their trajectory this season would have been more acceptable, albeit uneven. Of course if they had followed that path, they wouldn’t have been in position to sign Monroe. That’s where it gets complicated. Rather than ascend, the Bucks have regressed. Their defense now ranks in the lower third and their offense hasn’t improved all that much even with Monroe piling up double-doubles and shooting over 52 percent. Never known as a great defender, Monroe was an easy scapegoat earlier in the season. But the further you go down the rabbit hole, the harder it becomes to find fault with any one individual. There have been injuries that have played havoc with rotations. Opponents have had a year to adjust to Milwaukee’s trapping schemes and their lack of outside shooting remains a problem, just as it was last season. Their schedule has also been brutal with a heavy dose of road games that will ease off in the final month and a half. Beyond that, Parker is just 20 years old and with fewer than 80 games under his belt he’s still early in the development stage. For all of his talent and jaw-dropping flashes of potential, so is Antetokounmpo. Monroe’s arrival also coincided with the departures of Zaza Pachulia and Jared Dudley, savvy veterans whose value is never more apparent than when they are no longer there. Both have been key contributors on their new teams. And Monroe has produced. He’s averaging almost 17 points and 10 rebounds per game with a .563 True Shooting Percentage. His 22.8 Player Efficiency Rating is the highest individual mark on the team since Ray Allen back in 2001. Just as there are numbers that suggest the other members of the Bucks’ core play better without him, there are numbers that suggest the Bucks are better as a whole with him on the court. Monroe may not have been the missing piece, but he hasn’t exactly been the problem either.

"Nothing is for certain," Monroe said. "You have expectations but you never know what can happen. I don’t have any regrets coming here."

As a player, Monroe is a product of another time. In a different era, not even that long ago, he would have been considered an All-Star performer. In this one, where spacing and rim protection are at a premium and Draymond Green can be viewed in some circles as the league’s best center, Monroe is a throwback to an age when big men worked the paint and stayed there. It’s not that Monroe is a bad player. He’s obviously not. It’s that a player with his skillset requires adjustments from everyone.

Consider what the Hornets were able to build around Al Jefferson when he was the offensive focal point. Or, for a completely opposite extreme, consider what the Celtics have done with Isaiah Thomas. The Celtics encouraged Thomas to play his high-usage game to the hilt and it just so happened to blend perfectly with the talents and personalities of his teammates. Thomas has adjusted, as well, becoming more of a playmaker in his first full season with the team.

What it comes down to is a question of fit, and it remains to be seen whether the Bucks can make it work with Monroe and vice versa. All of that takes time and it’s worth remembering that they are an exceptionally young team. At 25 years of age, Monroe is the oldest player of a core group that also includes Khris Middleton.

"If you look back at the history of the game it could be that we’re ahead of schedule," Kidd said. "There’s always been teams that have been put together that are young that have failed. Most have all failed because we all come in last place if you don’t win the gold trophy. The process for what we’re doing, I think we’re ahead of schedule."

That may be an unsatisfying answer given all that was projected for them, but it may also be accurate. That’s the conundrum for the Bucks to unravel in a season when expectations collided awkwardly with the context of their situation.