Milwaukee Bucks and Minnesota Timberwolves: Franchise players in each NBA Team – NBA Feature Part 13
Milwaukee Bucks – Brandon Jennings
Although the Milwaukee Bucks greatly strengthened their back court by the acquisition of Monta Ellis midway through last season, the franchise player is still their young point guard Brandon Jennings.
Jennings has shown consistent improvement since his rookie year and last season he averaged nearly 20 points per game (19.1) – his career best. Jennings is a quality ball handler and can score in bunches once hot. He is also a
good defender and this aspect basically sets him apart from Ellis.
Next season will be the first time Ellis and Jennings will share the back court for the entire duration and it would be interesting to see how the two explosive – shoot first pass later – guards co-exist together.
On the positive side, this will be an opportunity for Jennings to increase his scoring as well as assists numbers, given that the opposition will have two threats to tackle. But, on the negative end, Monta’s arrival could take
the spotlight away from Jennings and the player might want out of the franchise, instead of taking it into the future.
Minnesota Timberwolves – Kevin Love
That is pretty much a no-brainer. The franchise player of the Wolves has to be Kevin Love.
It is said that in sports, it is not the wins but the losses that teach a lot and Love has indeed learnt everything the hard way.
He had been the lone warrior in Minnesota for a long time, before some good help finally came his way in the form of Ricky Rubio last season. All of sudden, the Wolves found a second scoring option and Love started to take over
the games on a more consistent basis.
The Wolves, at one point in the season, were strong contenders to make it in to the playoffs, but then disastrous struck. Rubio tore his ACL and it was back to square one for Love. The power forward kept on hammering numbers day
in and day out, but there was just no other outlet. The result was that the Wolves went downhill and a frustrated Love threatened that his patience is running thin in the off season.
What followed was a barrage of moves by the Wolves front office which saw Andrei Kirilenko, Alexey Shved and Brandon Roy join the franchise. Rubio is expected to be fit at the start of next season, and Kevin has now got decent
support alongside him. One can only imagine the heights to which the Wolves can around in future, but for that Love has to be in the thick of things.
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