John Henson (eye) has officially been listed as OUT against the Suns, according to the Bucks’ official game notes. In his sixth NBA season, Henson is the longest tenured player on the roster, but has never really been an important piece to the puzzle for the organization. The last few seasons he has had a meager bench role and did not contribute very often. After drafting Thon Maker, and trading for Greg Monroe, that role would only diminish and seemed to spell the end of Henson’s tenure as a Buck.
When Eric Bledsoe became available via trade, Henson’s name was thrown in by many people, including myself, as a possible trade piece. This was mostly to get rid of his large salary, but he had a limited role on the team and would not affect them that greatly. But, the organization decided to take a separate route and trade Monroe. With the Bucks sixth man and best offensive center now out of the picture, and not getting a big man back, the Bucks put their faith in Henson and the young core of big men on the roster. Henson (6.7 PPG, 6.6 RPG) started to get more minutes and after a stretch of games in where Maker struggled and Henson impressed, Henson got thrown into the starting center role.
Now, with Henson out against the Suns and Mirza Teletovic still nursing a knee injury, the Bucks will rely on a very inexperienced front court to go against Monroe, who the Bucks traded in favor of them. The Bucks organization obviously sees something in the young big guys on the roster and hopefully we will get to see what those things are.
Presumably, the Bucks will return Thon Maker to the starting role while Henson is out. This will leave his substitutes to be Joel Bolomboy and DJ Wilson. Bolomboy in his second year in the NBA has played a grand total of 13 games (1 this season) and Wilson, in his rookie year, has played in a whopping 6 games (no real valuable minutes). As you can see, the Bucks will not have much of any experience coming off the bench so Jason Kidd will have to figure out a way to make a solid rotation work against a lowly Suns team.
There is another option that I expect Jason Kidd to use at some point in the game. I believe Kidd will use a lineup with Giannis at the center position. Whether the reason be foul trouble with Thon or Wilson and/or Bolomboy playing inconsistently, Jason Kidd might be forced to play Giannis at center so he needs to at least explore that option going into the game. So do not be surprised if you see a lineup similar to Bledsoe-Brogdon-Snell-Middleton-Giannis. Now that would be exciting!
Henson went through a successful eye procedure in Chicago and plans to meet back up with the team in Salt Lake City for Saturday’s game so it does not seem like Henson’s injury is very serious or will force him out of the lineup for a long period of time so this could only be a temporary problem that Jason Kidd has to face. But that temporary problem has found its way to the surface and he will have to deal with it. Hopefully his solution can end this two game losing streak the Bucks have encountered.
