Last Friday, Greg Monroe was booed loudly in New York City by sulky Knicks fans still sullen he’d spurned them in free agency to sign with the Bucks.
On Tuesday night, Monroe was back in Milwaukee, in front of his home fans, hearing the aurally similar but affectionately different cries of "Moose" (his nickname), rather than "boo," resounding through the BMO Harris Bradley Center. The 7-foot center responded with yet another strong performance, though Milwaukee lost, 99-83, to the Celtics.
In the locker room afterward, Monroe said, "We have to find a way to keep our level of play high for longer periods of time, on both sides of the court." He was one of the only players that did play at a high level, finishing with 17 points, 14 rebounds and four assists – all team-highs for the game.
The signing of Monroe to a three-year, $50 million max contract in July indicated the Bucks’ belief that adding the gifted 25-year-old to their talented core could take them to the next level. A proven NBA scorer and rebounder who was tired of languishing in Detroit, Monroe has continually reiterated that his decision to sign with the Bucks, rather than the Knicks or Lakers, was a basketball one, made simply because he saw the best chance to win in Milwaukee.
As far as winning, the team has done as much of that as it has done the opposite so far this season. At 4-4, the young Bucks have been inconsistent early on, with a losing streak of three games followed by a winning streak of four, and they've struggled with injuries to key players and an unsettled rotation. They’ve also had to adjust to the presence of Monroe down low, where he significantly changes the team on offense and on defense.
Monroe wanted to be in Milwaukee, and he has 50 million reasons to love the city. Here are five reasons for Bucks fans to be glad he’s here, too.
1. He’s a fail-safe scorer
The league has trended away from low-post offense with the more wide-open, pace-and-space style becoming en vogue. But especially for Milwaukee, a mediocre-at-best shooting team (14th in the league in both field-goal and 3-point percentage, at 43.6 and 34.8, respectively) that is liable to go ice cold any night, having a dependable, back-to-the-basket scorer like Monroe is invaluable. The Bucks like to run sets with Monroe at the elbow and as a post-playmaker, but when all breaks down, it’s reassuring to know they can just dump it inside to him as a bailout, last-resort option down low and watch him go to work. Monroe is hitting 54.3 percent of his shots and a career-high 78.9 percent of his free throws.
2. You haven’t seen a big man like him here in years
Not since Vin Baker in 1996-97 have the Bucks had a guy that averaged at least 18 points and nine rebounds, as Monroe (18.0, 9.4) is doing right now. Baker was the last supreme interior presence in Milwaukee, and that was almost two decades ago. Even Andrew Bogut in his best season (15.9 points, 10.2 rebounds) wasn’t quite doing what Monroe is doing. He’s one of just four players in the NBA to lead his team in both points and rebounds (the others being Anthony Davis, Paul George and Zach Randolph) and the only one to lead his team in points, rebounds, blocks and steals.
3. He’s not as bad at defense as you think
Speaking of those blocks and steals, Monroe isn’t the sieve he’s been made out to be. Coming from the disorderly Pistons, where he played the last two years out of position at power forward and had a human eraser cleaning up his mistakes in Andre Drummond, Monroe was not a highly regarded defensive player, possessing a career defensive rating of 106.
With the Bucks, Monroe has stabilized and bolstered the interior. They aren’t as good on defense as they were last year (22nd in defensive efficiency, compared to second-best in 2014-15) but that’s not solely because of Monroe. He’s averaging career highs in blocks (1.1) and steals (1.5) per game, and his defensive rating through eight games is down to 103, tied for lowest on the team. One area, though, where he needs to improve is on the glass at his own end, where his 6.5 defensive rebounds per game are a big reason why Milwaukee is last in the league in that category.
4. He’s one of the team’s top playmakers
It’s partly an indictment of the rest of the Bucks that Monroe led the team in assists in Tuesday’s loss to the Celtics, but it’s also an indication of his passing ability. It was his fourth game of the season with at least four assists. He’s showed great vision distributing out of the post and at the elbow, and has been especially good at finding cutting teammates. Monroe is averaging a career-high assist percentage of 19.6, tied for third-best on Milwaukee. Meanwhile, his turnover percentage (11.0) is the team’s fifth-best mark and tied for the lowest of his career.
5. He’s having his best season
With career highs in point per game (18.0), true shooting percentage (59.2, which accounts for free throws and 3-pointers) and player efficiency rating (25.90, league-average PER is 15), Monroe is clearly enjoying the best season of his six-year career. His offensive rating of 118 is the best since he was a rookie and his usage rate (23.0) is his second-highest, signifying his high importance and heavy responsibility with the Bucks.
After the loss to the Celtics, Milwaukee head coach Jason Kidd said, "It’s not going to be up to Moose every night to start off 5 for 5. We need everybody to pitch in. We don’t have an all-star. So it takes a team effort." It may require a team effort for the Bucks to get to where they want to go, but Monroe is having an All-Star season and certainly has proven he can be a player to take them there.
Born in Milwaukee but a product of Shorewood High School (go ‘Hounds!) and Northwestern University (go ‘Cats!), Jimmy never knew the schoolboy bliss of cheering for a winning football, basketball or baseball team. So he ditched being a fan in order to cover sports professionally - occasionally objectively, always passionately. He's lived in Chicago, New York and Dallas, but now resides again in his beloved Brew City and is an ardent attacker of the notorious Milwaukee Inferiority Complex.
After interning at print publications like Birds and Blooms (official motto: "America's #1 backyard birding and gardening magazine!"), Sports Illustrated (unofficial motto: "Subscribe and save up to 90% off the cover price!") and The Dallas Morning News (a newspaper!), Jimmy worked for web outlets like CBSSports.com, where he was a Packers beat reporter, and FOX Sports Wisconsin, where he managed digital content. He's a proponent and frequent user of em dashes, parenthetical asides, descriptive appositives and, really, anything that makes his sentences longer and more needlessly complex.
Jimmy appreciates references to late '90s Brewers and Bucks players and is the curator of the unofficial John Jaha Hall of Fame. He also enjoys running, biking and soccer, but isn't too annoying about them. He writes about sports - both mainstream and unconventional - and non-sports, including history, music, food, art and even golf (just kidding!), and welcomes reader suggestions for off-the-beaten-path story ideas.
