Today on Decoder, we’re talking about the big Google antitrust trial that’s currently taking place in a federal courthouse. No, not the one you’re thinking of — it’s the second Google antitrust case in just as many months. The company lost a landmark case in August in which a court ruled that it had an illegal monopoly in search.
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Sports
Is continuity enough to get the Bucks back into title contention?
The Bucks are heading into 2024-25 after back-to-back seasons of playoff disappointment. Will Dame and Giannis find their groove?
Trent had known Rivers since he was 6 years old thanks to his father, Gary Trent Sr., whose NBA career overlapped with Rivers'. Trent Jr. had been a productive player with the Toronto Raptors for three and a half seasons but failed to reach an extension or find a multiyear deal on the free agent market. Word was out that Trent could be seeking a one-year deal for the 2024-25 season, and Rivers jumped at the opportunity.
The Bucks were seeking a replacement in their starting lineup for guard Malik Beasley and saw a youthful energy in Trent, who could fit smoothly alongside Milwaukee's superstar duo of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard.
Signing Trent to a one-year deal served as the biggest offseason addition for a team that prioritized depth signings over bold moves. The Bucks also swapped out players such as Jae Crowder and Patrick Beverley, who saw their roles and production reduced during the postseason, for a new crew of veteran backups in Delon Wright and Taurean Prince.
After a year of change and turnover for the Bucks -- in the past 12 months they swapped Jrue Holiday for Lillard, and hired and fired coach Adrian Griffin before turning to Rivers midway through the season -- a quiet summer was welcome for a team that enters the 2024-25 season trying to balance the benefits of continuity with the urgency of its championship expectations.
"We have that stability," Antetokounmpo said the day after the team's first-round playoff loss to the Indiana Pacers. "We're not questioning and trying to figure out how it's going to look moving forward.
"Now that you know, you just got to work."
Bucks general manager Jon Horst was limited in his flexibility to change his roster this offseason. Milwaukee's draft picks were depleted by the trade for Holiday in 2020 and for Lillard last year. Because of the restrictions of the new collective bargaining agreement, the Bucks did not have salary cap space and weren't allowed to aggregate contracts, acquire a player via sign-and-trade or use the tax midlevel exception.
It left them with little options aside from adding players via the veterans minimum.
Besides, it had still been less than a year since Milwaukee swooped in for Lillard before training camp, sending a package to the Portland Trail Blazers that included Holiday -- the starting point guard on the Bucks' 2021 championship team -- who was then sent to the eventual champion Boston Celtics. It was a bold move that paired an All-NBA guard in Lillard with a two-time MVP in Antetokounmpo, with each being the most accomplished teammate either player had ever played with.
Lillard's arrival also paid off in another way, as Antetokounmpo committed to the Bucks by signing a three-year, $186 million max extension that begins this season.
Antetokounmpo inked his deal one day before the start of the season, but the Bucks' positive momentum didn't carry into the games.
Lillard was slow to adjust to a new environment and struggled to find on-court chemistry with Antetokounmpo. Griffin was fired 43 games into the season (with a 30-13 record) before the team turned to Rivers, who went 17-19. With Antetokounmpo missing the entire six-game series against the Pacers because of a strained left calf and Lillard limited by an Achilles injury, the Bucks crashed out in the first round of the playoffs for a second straight season.
When Rivers took over the team in February, he acknowledged how difficult it would be to turn a team around midseason. Now with a full offseason and training camp, he will have an opportunity to establish a style of play, including by adding role players who better fit his vision.
"Think about it: Giannis worked out all [last] summer not knowing he was going to have Dame," Rivers said the day after last season's playoff exit. "Dame worked out a little bit, not knowing he was going to have Giannis. Khris [Middleton], the same way. Now all three of them get to work out this summer knowing some of the things we're going to do.
"The most important stuff is the sets and the stuff that you're going to run, giving it to them long before camp starts. Because it's easy for a star player to understand what he can do, it's better when he understands how he can make everybody else better through those sets."
The Bucks are betting on a full offseason and training camp to help build chemistry for Lillard and Antetokounmpo. Still, they were encouraged by the numbers with those two players on the floor last season: The team was plus-10.2 points per 100 possessions last season when their two stars shared the floor.
"I'm willing to put in work this summer. I think I have guys around me that they're willing to do so," Antetokounmpo said at the end of last season. "I saw how Dame was after the [playoffs]. I saw how Khris [Middleton] was after the game. ... I know they're going to put in the work."
The question for Milwaukee is how the Bucks will compare to the rest of a stacked Eastern Conference.
Boston is coming off a historic season in which it won its league-leading 18th NBA championship. The Philadelphia 76ers just reloaded by adding superstar Paul George to play alongside Joel Embiid and emerging star Tyrese Maxey. The New York Knicks strengthened their core by adding Mikal Bridges. Emerging young teams, the Cleveland Cavaliers, Orlando Magic and Pacers, are on the rise, having finished with playoff spots last season.
Meanwhile, the Bucks return one of the oldest rosters in the NBA with four of their projected starters over 30. Antetokounmpo, who has been injured during the last two postseasons, turns 30 this season. Lillard will be 35 in October. Middleton is 34 and coming off offseason surgery on both ankles. Center Brook Lopez is 36.
"I always like a team that wins to have a little bit of experience, which comes from being a little bit older, knowing how to play the game and have that corporate knowledge of the game," Antetokounmpo said at the end of last season. "And a little bit of energy."
The age of its roster and the pressure to maximize each season of Antetokounmpo's prime -- "With Giannis, you're always on the clock," Horst told ESPN at the start of last season -- guided Milwaukee's bold moves over the past year in pursuit of another title.
Now the Bucks are counting on an offseason defined by continuity, a few additions to their depth and some better health during the postseason to give them a chance at another championship.
"We're getting older. We're not getting any younger, but that doesn't mean we cannot still perform at a high level," Antetokounmpo said. "It's hard to say, 'Yeah, we're old and you have to make changes.' Because these guys, they're beasts."
Sports
Will Sauce Gardner's quest to be the best CB be overshadowed by lack of interceptions?
Despite being named All-Pro in his only two seasons in the NFL, Sauce Gardner and the New York Jets are hoping for more interceptions.
Technology
Why Google is back in court for another monopoly showdown
Google is back in antitrust court, this defending web advertising business.
This time around, the Department of Justice is claiming Google has another illegal monopoly in the online advertising market.
Unlike the search case, the ads case is both extremely complicated and somewhat harder to see. We all use search all day, and we’re surrounded by online ads all day, but while it’s easy to talk about search, no one really wants to think about how the ads get there or how much they really cost. And there’s added complexity here because of the intricate relationship between Google’s ad products and its search engine, which afforded Google the scale and resources to grow far faster than the competition — especially through aggressive acquisitions.
See, while Google figured out search advertising all by itself, it had to acquire its expertise in many of the other forms of online advertising, like display and video ads, by buying competitors. It then spent many years integrating and combining those companies and their products into a wildly complicated system known as an ad tech stack, basically an all-in-one shop for businesses and websites of all sizes to buy and sell ads, and creating, arguably, the world’s most sophisticated digital ad network.
To hear the rest of the industry tell it, Google maintained the dominance of that network pretty ruthlessly — most people don’t see the side of Google that makes the money, and that side is just as cutthroat and competitive as any big business.
Verge senior policy reporter Lauren Feiner has been at the courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, basically every day this month to hear testimony from news publishers, advertising experts, and Google executives — and, ultimately, to see whether a federal judge hands the company another antitrust defeat. I brought Lauren on the show this week to help me break it all down and to get her take on which direction she thinks this case is headed next.
If you want to know more about everything Lauren and I discuss in this episode, check out these stories for deeper context and analysis on the trial and the history of Google’s ad business:
Decoder with Nilay Patel /
A podcast from The Verge about big ideas and other problems.
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