PODCAST and Bucks Stock Market: The Bucks lose to the Raptors plus lose DeMarcus Cousins

News broke literally a minute after the game ended that Milwaukee was waiving Boogie before his contract guaranteed.

The Bucks Stock Market is a fictitious market run by the GSPN crew that tracks player stock “movement” following the conclusion of every game. Here’s the spreadsheet logging the game-by-game results.

No Giannis, no Pat, no Grayson, no Hill, no Donte, and yet I am still upset with a loss. I know the Raptors have been a decent team since getting their key guys healthy, but the Bucks still have two max guys in Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton AND the remaining role players were actually playing really well! After their second loss in a row, let’s talk movements.

Jrue Holiday📉

After going on a tear these last few weeks, Jrue Holiday had a stinker. In a matchup where he was going up against fellow All-Star guard candidate Fred VanVleet, Jrue lost that battle. Though he had good defensive moments, he was flummoxed while being a playmaker, which led to him having a team-high EIGHT turnovers.

Khris Middleton📉

I don’t know if there is anything in particular that is wrong with Khris that is leading to these types of performances, but his outing against the Raptors wasn’t great. Similar to Giannis is the loss to Detroit, this was a game where the box score isn’t indicative of true performance. He led the team in scoring on decent efficiency, but he just didn’t seem engaged the whole game. He wasn’t closing out with force, he was rotating late, and his offense didn’t even show up in full-force till the game was out of hand. I love Khris, but he has to step it up.

Now, for the podcast. Ti and I sat down with the esteemed Jordan Treske of the Win in 6 podcast to react to news that the Bucks were waiving DeMarcus Cousins right after the game. For as much time as we spent trying to analyze and make sense of the move, the overwhelming vibe was honestly that this just sucks.

For as much as his defense was a question mark, Boogie was legitimately impactful in his Bucks tenure. He provided an offensive spark plug from the bench, and according to net rating was a serious positive to Milwaukee in the midst of a tumultuous season. Who knows what other moves may be coming, but if this move is entirely to save tax dollars than it’s disappointing at best and could be harmful to the team’s ceiling this year at worst.

The Milwaukee Bucks will look to rebound after losses of games and players on Friday in a marquee matchup against the Brooklyn Nets at 6:30 pm central.