Where we find out just how much fans are done with Jae Crowder
This is the first in what will be a series of articles documenting what went wrong in the Bucks first-round defeat at the hands of the Pacers, which will then move into a season-long point of view before we firmly put it all behind us. We begin with one of our SB Nation Reacts surveys, where we asked a couple overarching questions about the series, beginning with some finger-pointing:
There have been vocal, but small and ultimately not representative sections of the fanbase who are tarring-and-feathering Jon Horst, Doc Rivers, or [insert role player here]. To be sure, all of these parties deserve some blame for going out in the first round, but that’s how things work with a team/franchise. A sizeable majority of fans believe that injuries were to blame for how things turned out, and they’re right. Without Giannis Antetokounmpo, an all-timer in his prime, the Bucks are akin to a lower-seeded playoff team even with Damian Lillard and Khris Middleton both going into flamethrower mode. Take Dame out of the series with injury and even peak Middleton isn’t enough, given the lack of quality talent around him.
That brings us to the next poser, which moves onto offseason discussion: if you could only move on from ONE of these three players, who would it be?
This trio earned a lot of ire from Bucks fans the past couple of weeks, with the venom going back much further for Beasley and Crowder. After he was a DNP-CD in both Game 5 and 6, it’s become clear that BOSSMAN 99 is not in the Bucks future plans. Rightfully so, as he provided so little on either end in Game 2 when Indiana absolutely crushed the Bucks in the mere fifteen minutes he was on the floor (-21) that he got just two minutes in Game 3. He really only got into Game 4 because Dame was hurt and the Bucks needed all hands on deck, but he was clearly behind A.J. Green and Andre Jackson Jr. in the rotation.
I think a lot of fans probably also want to move on from Beasley and a sizeable amount from Portis too, to say nothing of other role players on the roster who would probably get an even bigger share of the votes. However, the way this question was worded (the text in the image is a bit misleading based on how it originally appeared earlier this week) really shows the disdain people have for Crowder. Though bringing him back on a minimum was a fine bit of business in a vacuum, giving up five second-round picks to acquire him the year before stings, even more so when you consider that his market was that bad due to being played off the floor in the 2023 Playoffs. He’s pretty washed and will definitely have to settle for a minimum, likely towards the far end of the bench, even on a non-contending team.
As an aside, I find it pretty bizarre that after he stunk against Miami and then-head coach Mike Budenholzer benched him, so many fans took his side when he expressed his disdain for how Bud handled his role because so many fans wanted him fired. That made me shake my head then—Crowder was real bad in the 2023 first round—and benching him was a decision Bud got right. A year later, he looks even more correct after Doc Rivers made the same conclusion. Crowder has so few fans among the Bucks’ faithful, and I imagine all of those who rushed to his support in 2023 as a way to denounce the head coach are long gone from his side.
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