The first cab off the rank in this year\u2019s Ranking The Roster series is Mark Sears, who arrives in the Cream City with a laundry list of accolades from the college level. In a sport heavily favoured to tall people, it\u2019s going to be an uphill climb for the 5\u201911\u201d Sears to make headway as an NBA player. That said, of all the short guards to reach the fringes of the league, I think he has as good a shot as anyone.<\/p>\n
So, what qualities does Mark have that would make him of use to the Bucks? Well, the Bucks have a dearth of true playmakers on the team; you\u2019re looking mainly at Giannis (obviously), Kevin Porter Jr., and Cole Anthony. If Sears plays meaningful minutes this season, it would likely be if one of Porter or Anthony gets hurt, and he\u2019d assume some semblance of the role he played in college as a high-usage playmaker. Of course, he\u2019d also have to beat out fellow two-way Jamaree Bouyea. I should note that Mark was closer to a scoring guard than a facilitator at Alabama, but the Bucks need scoring as much as they need passing, so that could work out OK.<\/p>\n
Another aspect that could work in Sears\u2019 favour is that, with Dame off the team, it becomes easier to insulate a smaller guard like him than it would have been with Lillard still on the team. Guys like KPJ, AJ Green, Gary Trent, and Ryan Rollins could surround Mark at the SG and SF spots to cover for his weaknesses. If they can work out how to keep him on the court defensively, he\u2019s going to create good stuff on the other end with his shooting (career 37.5% three-point shooter in college) and scoring ability.<\/p>\n
Finally, I want to address the \u201cundersized, high-usage college players can\u2019t scale down their roles in the NBA\u201d argument. I think there is always value in being \u201cthe guy.\u201d Players learn a lot by playing a role in which they are relied on heavily to create offence for their team. This experience is valuable because when these players reach the NBA, they should understand what \u201cthe guy\u201d on the NBA team needs and be able to mould their game to fit that. Furthermore, Mark\u2019s game lends itself to scaling down; he\u2019s a good shooter and thus can play off the ball. He also has decent passing instincts (averaged 3.9 APG across five college seasons) and knows how to make the next play. For example, if Giannis were to post up and get double-teamed, Sears would know what the correct read is when the ball is swung to him (in a way that Taurean Prince, for example, probably would not).<\/p>\n
Overall, I\u2019m a fan of Mark Sears and love his story of rising from obscurity to become a two-time All-American. But what about you, the readers? Do you think Sears has any shot to see the floor this season, or in the playoffs? Let us know in the gut check and in the comments, but most importantly, vote below for who you believe Milwaukee\u2019s next-best player is!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first cab off the rank in this year\u2019s Ranking The Roster series is Mark Sears, who arrives…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":197325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[68968,1260,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-197324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-bucks-analysis","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115141459019347480","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}