Jon Horst dropped the term “positional size” over and over when he talked about Brayden Burries and Nate Ament after the draft. Look, going big at every spot is super trendy across the whole league right now, but it really feels like the Bucks are making a deliberate shift back to that philosophy. Whether they mean to or not, this team is getting absolutely stacked with dudes who are just massive for their positions.
Milwaukee’s New-Look Big Lineup
We’re talking about a lineup that’s just *different*. Kasparas Jakucionis, their point guard, is a beast at 6’5″. Ousmane Dieng, a combo guard, is 6’9″. Nate Ament is a 6’10” wing. Kel’el Ware is a 7’0″ four/five. And the list keeps going with guys like Turner, Burries, Jaquez, and Porter. They’re clearly committed to this idea of having size everywhere on the court. It’s a bold move, and you’ve gotta wonder how it’s all gonna gel on the floor.
Kidd’s Ghost: The Pitfalls of Size Alone
Here’s the thing, though: this isn’t their first rodeo with loading up on size. The Jason Kidd Bucks were practically famous for it, and man, there’s an iconic photo of that squad floating around that just screams “limitless limbs.” But let’s be real, the Kidd Bucks, despite all that length, weren’t exactly worldbeaters. They showed us the hard truth that size alone isn’t some magic cheat code.
Kristian Winfield from SB Nation pointed this out back in 2018. Kidd, who took over before the 2014-15 season, had this grand plan for a vigorous defense, all propped up by their size. He told his players to be super aggressive on defense because he thought their collective size would let them recover better than anyone else. Winfield wrote that Kidd implemented this “blitzing defence” where two defenders would swarm the ball-handler, with ball hawks lurking for any sloppy passes. The whole idea was to completely rattle offenses and force them into awkward, floating passes.
And yeah, that scheme actually looked pretty good in the first season. They finished 41-41 and had the fourth-best defensive rating in the NBA. But then? Hard crash. The next three seasons saw them drop to 23rd, 19th, and 18th in defensive rating. That pretty much screams that the scheme was a flop and that first season might’ve been more luck than anything else, since it’s such a major outlier.
Scheme Versus Personnel: A Stark Contrast
This all stood in stark contrast to the super conservative, and super successful, approach of Mike Budenholzer, Kidd’s replacement. Now, you can’t make a straight apples-to-apples comparison. Budenholzer had Brook Lopez anchoring his defense, while Kidd had Greg Monroe. No disrespect to Monroe, but Lopez is a different animal on defense. Still, you have to admit, the biggest takeaway here is that the defensive scheme itself is the absolute most important factor in truly maxing out a team’s defensive potential. You can have all the size in the world, but if the game plan isn’t right, what’s it all for?
So, what does this all mean for the Bucks now? As they lean into this “positional size” approach again, the big question isn’t just how big they can get. It’s whether Jon Horst and the coaching staff have a scheme that can *actually* unlock that size, or if they’re just going to repeat history. This isn’t just about making the team bigger; it’s about making them better, and the ghost of Kidd’s past should be a real-time lesson they’re hoping to avoid.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Brew Hoop.
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