(Editor’s note: this post is adapted from benchmobblog.com)
Bobby Portis has been a fan favorite in Milwaukee for well over half a decade now. He, alongside Giannis, is the heart and soul of the Bucks. Bobby has helped this team accomplish so much, and he’s had so many awesome moments in a green-and-cream jersey.
That’s why it’s painful to say it’s time for him to go.
The big fella has fundamental flaws in his game that have become harder and harder to ignore. His performance against the Raptors Tuesday
night added to the long list of evidence that his capacity to play winning basketball is seriously limited. Against Toronto, he scored two points on 1/8 shooting and finished with a -13 plus-minutes in 20 minutes of play. His minutes were capital-B bad. Tough shooting nights for Bobby are worse than they are for most players, because when he isn’t making shots, he’s hardly doing anything.
Defensively, Portis is a true, undeniable negative. Nobody has even been scared to attack him. He doesn’t affect shots at the rim, let alone block them, and while he can sometimes hedge effectively, his feet are too slow to give him any real merit on the perimeter. He has no defensive role because he’s not apt to fit into any of them. This is a major problem in a league that loves liability-hunting. When they’re running Bobby at the five, Milwaukee is essentially inviting opponents into the paint and letting them do whatever they want. That was the case against the Raptors and the Kings over the weekend as well. Rim protection is maybe the single most important thing for an NBA team to have besides shooting, and when the Bucks play Portis at center, they’re missing it completely. It’s easier to hide him at the four, but again, he can’t consistently guard in space, so that’s still an unideal situation.
Frankly, Bobby being so awful on D is reason enough for a playoff team to move on from him. It would be wonderful if we could leave it at that. Alas, we can’t.
Bobby’s main jobs on offense are to space the floor and be a microwave spark off the bench. It can’t be denied that he can score. They don’t call him Bobby Buckets for no reason. However, the way he goes about getting his buckets is often more harmful than helpful. He takes a high volume of turnaround contested middies that would be considered dumb shots by any sensible coach in the country. When he’s making them, you can’t argue with the results, but this season especially, he hasn’t been making enough of them to make up for the fact that when he’s missing them, he’s bleeding value.
When his shot isn’t falling, he continues to chuck anyway, and rarely looks to pass. That’s a total shame, and also just such a detriment to this specific version of the Bucks, which has so few creators and needs sharp ball movement to function. Bobby could be a legitimate positive post playmaker, given that he often attracts extra defensive attention, but in reality, he’s a black hole! He doesn’t play team-first hoops. Things would be more justifiable if he took more threes, considering he’s a real threat from beyond the arc, but he instead chooses to settle again and again for boneheaded faders. Ugh.
The Bucks are looking to maximize their chances of winning with Giannis on the team. The harsh truth is that relying heavily on Bobby Portis as their backup center isn’t advancing that goal. He’s not a genuinely bad NBA player, he’s just not what this team needs at all. That’s why Milwaukee should be looking to move off him in a trade, hopefully in exchange for a more traditional five-man that can defend the basket or a big wing with some grit and athleticism.
Every decision and move, big or small, matters for the Bucks right now, and the choice to give Portis a featured role is not the right one. It’s time for him to go, before the Milwaukee hero becomes a villain in the eyes of the fans he’s entertained for six seasons.
