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Report: The Bucks voted to bench Jabari Parker for telling tales out of school
When the Milwaukee Bucks took on the Miami Heat Saturday, Bucks forward Jabari Parker came off the bench for the first time since December of 2015. Why did head coach Jason Kidd opt for rookie Thon Maker over the 21-year-old Parker, who’s currently turning in a career year to provide supporting scoring for a Giannis Antetokounmpo-led Bucks team that’s fighting for a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference?
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Coach Jason Kidd said Parker is not starting due to violation of a team rule. But Parker will play vs. the Heat, Kidd said.
— cfgardner (@cf_gardner) January 21, 2017
Kidd on Parker coming off bench: "One of the team rules was broken. That's the only reason Maker is starting."
— cfgardner (@cf_gardner) January 21, 2017
Kidd declined to offer specifics, but according to Chris Haynes of ESPN.com, Parker’s punishment stemmed from the former Duke standout speaking out of turn following the Bucks’ Friday night clunker in Central Florida:
Milwaukee Bucks forward Jabari Parker did not start in Saturday’s road loss to the Miami Heat for violating a team rule that prohibits disclosing locker room discourse to the media, league sources told ESPN. […]
Milwaukee is currently on a five-game losing skid. After dropping their fourth consecutive game on Friday in Orlando, the Bucks held a team meeting in which Parker became vocal in voicing his frustration with the lack of togetherness, sources said.
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Here’s Parker breaking the Wisconsin omerta to Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
This time it was so bad the Milwaukee Bucks had to talk it out.
The Bucks players and coaches met in a closed locker room for more than 35 minutes Friday night following Milwaukee’s 112-96 loss to the Orlando Magic at the Amway Center. […]
Coaches and players were part of the locker room meeting to address the team’s issues.
“It’s being more enthusiastic, looking forward to the next [game],” Parker said. “We’ll find our way out.
“I spoke up for the first time and it didn’t go my way. I was getting thrashed, but hey, as long as I give them another perspective, I did my job.”
According to Gardner, the post-game chat didn’t exactly reveal a state secret …
And by the way, everybody knew there was a team meeting. Reporters waited more than 30 minutes after game, quite unusual.
— cfgardner (@cf_gardner) January 22, 2017
… but Parker’s teammates evidently didn’t feel that way. According to Haynes, they “deliberated and decided the appropriate punishment for the violation was to bring him off the bench against the Heat.”
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From the sound of things, then, Parker looked at a situation that seemed to be heading south — Milwaukee had lost four in a row, getting whomped by nearly 16 points per 100 possessions in the process and struggling to find success on either end of the floor — and thought, “Hey, as a No. 2 overall draft pick counted on as one of the foundational pieces of whatever we’re trying to build here, this is an opportunity for me to step up and speak out!” (Something, you might recall, Parker hasn’t been particularly shy about doing off the court.)
Sometimes, though, it’s not speaking out that’s the issue, but rather how you frame it after the fact. One wonders whether the other Bucks would’ve felt the need to send Jabari a message had he offered some generic “guys talked and we got on the same page” commentary rather than telling Gardner he “was getting thrashed” during the team’s discussion.
The former presentation allows the team to promote an “us against the world” or “we’re all we’ve got” sort of solidarity. The latter, though, can open the door to further questioning about the dynamic within the locker room — “Who shouted Parker down?” can become “Just how large is the rift in the Bucks locker room?” can become “Is this team falling apart?!?!?!” (I mean, it certainly would in New York or Los Angeles, anyway.) Reporters love players who speak their minds and who tell the truth; teammates, though, might prefer a slightly less fact-based approach to having to deal with additional headaches as they try to pull out of a losing streak.
Not that Parker’s benching did much on that score, though. The Heat, owners of just 13 wins entering Saturday, handed the Bucks their fourth double-digit loss in five games, as Dion Waiters and Goran Dragic combined for 58 points while Hassan Whiteside put up a 16-point, 15-rebound double-double. Parker still played 32 minutes in the defeat, but went 7-for-18 from the field en route to 16 points, seven rebounds and four assists for the Bucks, who now sit at 20-23.
“It’s just a challenge,” Parker said of his one-game move to the bench. “I tried to be as positive as possible.”
The good news for the Bucks is that they’re not the only ones scuffling. Three games under .500 is good enough to be within one game of the final playoff spot in the East, thanks in part to the team holding that spot, the Chicago Bulls, having its own issues to resolve. Milwaukee still has Giannis, still has Jabari, still has non-Embiid Rookie of the Year Malcolm Brogdon, still has youth and length and talent and versatility and possibility. Progress isn’t always linear; neither, as Parker just learned, is the path to becoming a leader on an NBA team.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!
