Why Grayson Allen’s Latest Foul Tests Our Love of the Bucks

There is plenty to love about Milwaukee. But Allen’s dangerous foul on Alex Caruso, and his team’s reaction to it, makes us wonder what’s going on there.

Bucks guard Grayson Allen was ejected during a game this past Friday after committing a hard foul on Bulls guard Alex Caruso during the third quarter of Milwaukee’s 94–90 victory. The foul resulted in a fractured wrist for Caruso and a one-game suspension for Allen.

Was the suspension fair? Why did Allen add fuel to the fire by his reaction after committing the foul? Our NBA gurus Michael Pina and Rohan Nadkarni break down the incident in this week’s Open Floor podcast.

Michael: O.K., so after the dust has settled and all the ballots are counted … how many All-Star votes do you think Grayson Allen will receive from his fellow players?

Rohan: Who’s running the Bucks social media account? [Laughs]

Michael: Potentially someone different now than three days ago.

Rohan: I generally don’t get involved [with team social accounts] anyway, but there are definitely things that are in poor taste or whatever, and generally it doesn’t matter. You can just ignore a tweet and your life will go on. But the Bucks, for some reason, seem intent on just making people angry. They went after the Raptors weirdly a week or two ago and Shang-Chi was in their mentions. I don't know what’s going on there, but team accounts—take a breath, just tweet out the score!

Michael: I was not expecting that diversion.

Rohan: The team accounts are just a little heavy-handed these days. Let’s dial it down a bit.

Michael: I was not expecting to go into the social media portion of this type of conversation, but yeah, he wasn’t a part of the championship-winning team. I was at the White House when the Bucks were there because that’s what you do when you win the title, and Grayson Allen was sitting with family members in the crowd. He obviously wasn’t a part of the team and it makes total sense and it’s understandable. I’m not trying to make fun of him, but it was kind of jarring to see that. And I was like, “Oh yeah, Grayson Allen is on this team.”

Chicago guard Alex Caruso will miss four-to-six weeks with a fractured wrist after taking this hard foul from Grayson Allen (far left) :: Morry Gash/Associated Press

Rohan: And you were there to protest in defense of the filibuster. Right?

Michael: That’s exactly what I was there. I failed miserably. [Both laugh.]

Michael: [Back to what happened] … Allen fouled Caruso on a pretty dirty play. Allen has a history of fouling and tripping and doing all these sorts of things [against players], going back to his time at Duke.

Rohan: And then him making a weird face after doing it [to Caruso]. It’s like he has history of both doing the thing and then being really smug about it.

Michael: Did you think the one-game suspension was too lenient?

Rohan: It was way too lenient. I didn’t get it at all. Suspend the guy for a week, even a few weeks.

Michael: A week? Wow.

Rohan: Even if you have to do half of it without pay and half of it with pay, I absolutely think they got to suspend him for longer than [one game]. Listen, I was surprised when Nikola Jokic only got one game for that Markieff Morris one. Markieff still hasn’t returned to action. I thought Allen’s suspension absolutely should have been longer … and I’m sure the union would have probably gotten involved. It had been too long or whatever, but one game, I was like, “That’s it? After all that?” Yeah, it is what it is.

Michael: I was kind of weirded out that the Bucks released a statement.

Rohan: That they disagreed with it? Yes! Why did the Bucks continue to try to piss people off? Are they incapable of reading the room? Did they think that was going to be cool? They were like, “Oh, people are going to think it’s bad-ass when we say we disagree with the decision.” What?

Michael: Yeah, it is weird. I personally find it hard to not like the Bucks just because of most of the players on the team. I love them. Love Giannis, love Khris Middleton, love Jrue Holiday, love Bobby Portis. Bobby Portis is my favorite player of all time now after last year. But [with this Allen suspension]? Come on.

Rohan: What about just no statement? What about that required a statement?

Michael: It was ridiculous. And I think we’ve made our opinions clear on this, and we will not be releasing a statement when releasing this podcast.

[Editor’s note: This is a partial transcription from Monday’s Open Floor podcast, edited for clarity. You can listen to the full podcast here.]

More NBA Covarage:

• The Ones He Left Behind
• NBA All-Stars: Predicting the Western Conference Roster
• NBA Power Rankings: One Player to Watch for Each Team
• Life After 7'6": Shawn Bradley, Paralyzed in a Bike Crash, Knows ‘It’ll Never Be the Same’