As the Miami Heat completed a four-game sweep of the No. 8-seed Milwaukee Bucks with an 88-77 win on Sunday, owner Micky Arison decided to leave the Bucks with some farewell words:
Arison is one of the most involved owners in the NBA, and takes obvious pride in his teams success. He is well aware that the Heat are not only the defending champs, but the favorites to take home the Larry O’Brien trophy in 2013.
Milwaukee’s Brandon Jennings found this out the hard way, and may have inspired the sarcasm out of Arison tonight when he predicted that the Bucks — who finished an uninspiring 38-44 — would beat the Heat — 66-16 — in no more than six games.
Jennings did his best to back up his bold prediction in game one, scoring 26 points and serving as the Bucks go-to source of offense. But in the three games to follow, Jennings turned in three of the worst consecutive performances we’ve seen from a point guard in these playoffs, and maybe this entire season.
Jennings averaged just nine points to go with 4.7 assists and shot an abysmal 24.3 percent from the field. Not from three, from the field. He shot 11.1 percent from beyond the arc and his 2.7 turnovers per game did not help the Bucks give Miami a decent fight.
All in all, Jennings did not just hurt his reputation, but he surely did not strengthen his case to get a max-extension this offseason from the Bucks or any other team for that matter.
His bone-headed prediction is not surprising to those who are familiar with Jennings, though. It accurately portrays the type of player that Jennings is on the court: an erratic, shoot-first point guard who plays as if he is elite.
In just four games, Jennings proved that neither he or his team are elite.
In a guard driven league where stars continue to rise from the point guard position — Kyrie Irving, Stephen Curry, Ty Lawson and Jrue Holiday are just the most recent players to make the leap — Jennings finds himself on the outside looking in, and may have to settle for a lot less than he thinks he deserves.
Meanwhile, the Miami Heat will kindly thank him for the extra incentive.
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Ben Baroff is a basketball journalist who blogs for SheridanHoops.com. Follow him on Twitter here.