What’s one thing Milwaukee’s big three can each do, that requires no talent, to enhance the team’s upside?
I had been thinking a lot about the upcoming season and what it will take for the Bucks to fire their absolute best shot at another title. With an aging and imperfect roster, there will only be so many chances to seal the deal. So, how can the team maximise those chances? They can simply be better at the stuff that takes little to no skill or talent.
Therefore, I decided to write an “accountability series” where I chose one thing each of the Bucks rotation players can do—that has nothing to do with skill or talent—that will marginally enhance the team’s upside. What’s marginal improvement worth? It could well be an NBA title.
Let’s begin with the big three:
Giannis Antetokounmpo: screen setting
Some may find this analysis somewhat unfair. “Giannis already averages a near-30-point triple-double while also playing a key role on defence, and you’re critiquing his screening ability?” And that’s completely justified. Antetokounmpo is an otherworldly talent who will still be a Hall of Famer without becoming a better and more comfortable screener. My response would be to offer the famous quote “heavy is the head that wears the crown.” I don’t necessarily have the same critiques of Brook Lopez and Bobby Portis because I don’t think either can realistically be that level of screener, whereas it is completely realistic for the Greek Freak. Giannis is the tide that lifts all boats, and committing to becoming better as a screener will take this team to new heights.
Here’s the thing, NBA teams have gotten increasingly better, whatever that’s worth, at dealing with Giannis’ assaults at the rim after all these years. Doesn’t mean they’re good at it, but they’ve gotten better—especially in the playoffs. I firmly believe these teams hope and pray Giannis never develops good pick-and-roll chemistry with a lethal guard like, I don’t know, Damian Lillard. Because then they’ll be faced with the terrifying prospect of having to consistently shift their attention off the most dominant player in the world and, if Milwaukee executes well, start picking their poison: “is it an open Lillard three off the bounce, Giannis rampaging to the rim with daylight, or are we gifting Middleton or Trent Jr. a wide-open trifecta? Doesn’t matter, we’re screwed regardless.” This is the pinnacle: a stage of the opponent relying on hope more than any tangible strategy, à la the Durant Warriors. But the initial screening action is the crucial domino that sets everything else up.
So, where is the low-hanging fruit here? First off, Giannis needs to utilise Dame’s gravity—and the other guards’ gravity, for that matter—more than he did last season. There’s just no two ways about it. Although finding numbers specifically for the Antetokounmpo/Lillard action was difficult, I did find that Giannis, in general, was the roll man on just over seven percent of Milwaukee’s offensive possessions last season according to the NBA’s advanced stats. Not that he needs to be setting 40 picks every game, but that number needs to be higher. If the issue is a lack of comfortability in that role, then it’s incumbent on Giannis, the coaching staff, and players not to settle, but to continuously work to iron out those details.
From an outsider’s perspective, this lack of comfortability last season seemed to appear most often in the short roll when Dame drew two defenders and Giannis received the ball with a numbers advantage ahead of him. The decision-making and footwork from that point were just a tad slow, which often allowed the defence to reset. Nikola Jokić is the standard here; he’s so good at punishing hedges and traps that opposing teams try to avoid doing it at all costs. Jokić sets the screen, gets the ball in the short roll, evaluates where the help is coming from, and passes to the open man—all the while avoiding the charge. And if no one fully commits to him, he shoots the open floater. It’s like shelling peas.
To be clear, I’m not saying Antetokounmpo can just become Jokić, but he can certainly learn these help patterns like the back of his hand. And the only way to do that is to keep putting himself in these positions until he’s comfortable in them. Teams know he is uncomfortable and will keep trapping Dame to force Giannis into this position until he punishes it on a regular basis. We saw in last season’s Western Conference Finals that Minnesota was more than happy to blitz with Daniel Gafford as Dallas’ centre, but very hesitant to do so with Dereck Lively II because of his playmaking ability, which opened up space for Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving to work because they weren’t seeing multiple defenders. Ergo, Lively was more valuable to have out there.
In all fairness, Antetokounmpo has not had much experience screening for a player like Lillard. Opposing teams put world-class defenders on Dame and guard 94 feet, grabbing, holding, and pushing. They stick to him like a cheap suit. Screening someone who is guarded like this is not easy. It takes constant flipping of the screen and re-screening to get the desired contact, all the while not setting the pick illegally; sprinting in and out of the screen; and crucially, being willing to take a beating as dudes ram into your sternum all game long. It’s an arduous task, to say the least.
Having said all of this, the point is that, in today’s NBA, it pays to know how to play out of pick-and-roll actions. And for all of Giannis’ talents, this is the one realistic facet of his game he’s yet to master. Is Antetokounmpo willing to put in the work to add the final string to his bow? Because at the end of the day, the Giannis-Dame pick-and-roll sounds great on paper, but unless they and the coaching staff make it such, it will be just OK. And if they do make that effort, this action can be truly unstoppable.
Damian Lillard: off-ball defence
Dame will be a central cog to everything the Bucks do on offence, but for them to get back to the top, he must max out what he can do on the other end. Look, Lillard’s on-ball defence is what it is. Yes, he does have good hands, but he’s a small guard and you’re going to give some stuff up because of that. Milwaukee’s front office knew this when they traded for him. But the eight-time All-Star can certainly be significantly better and more focused as an off-ball defender, an area in which he’s been criticised over his career.
Being switched on with respect to the geography of where players are on the court takes zero skill. There was a litany of instances last season where Dame was ball-watching as his man cut to the rim or relocated to a different position to shoot—this cannot happen with the same frequency going forward. The focus must be better in year two. Moreover, Dame should take note of some of the other smaller, less defensively gifted guards in the league who make up for it elsewhere. Per the NBA’s hustle stats, Brandin Podziemski and Jalen Brunson led the league in charges drawn per game last season. Lillard ranked 79th. Seriously, I counted.
Now, confirming this is difficult, but from the eye test and conventional wisdom, I’m willing to bet an overwhelming majority of these were off-ball* charges. Do I personally dislike what off-ball charge-drawing has become? Yes! In my opinion, the action of guys jumping in front of what are often bigger and more athletic players—in many cases while airborne or long after they’ve passed the ball—and falling over like a sack of potatoes sets a dangerous precedent for the game. Does that mean Dame shouldn’t partake in the same thing if the league is still rewarding it? No! Max out in every area you possibly can, Dame. Be the charge-drawing, Kyle-Lowry-imitating gnat Bucks fans have loathed for the entire Giannis era. As the saying goes: “don’t hate the player, hate the game.”
Note: by “off-ball charge” I am, in this instance, referring to when a defender comes off their initial matchup to jump in front of the guy catching the ball, not that the charge is taken completely away from the ball.
Khris Middleton: keeping it simple
Hard one to choose for Khris Middleton, who generally stays within himself and plays his role as the third banana very well. But one area that could use some work is Middleton’s tendency to do too much with the ball, sometimes turning it over in the process. To his credit, Middleton averages just over two turnovers per game for his career, so this is no five-alarm fire, but there is some meat on the bone here.
Khris is best when he’s making pass, dribble, or shoot decisions off limited dribbles. It’s when he hangs with the ball too long that things can get hairy. As Middleton has aged, his ability to beat guys off the dribble has diminished even from the limited ability he once had. At this point, you prefer him not dribbling up the court against pressure, and you don’t want him isolating too often behind the three-point line—different story in the post.
Ideally, Khris is playing off second-side actions after the initial action has already occurred, which the Bucks did most of the time last season when healthy, to their credit. This way, he can attack a shifting defence with, say, a step-up screen, and go from there. It also allows Middleton to use his excellent passing chops more adeptly. For example, a Dame-Giannis pick-and-roll on one wing where Giannis’ man shows on the screen will allow Khris to be the relief valve to either A) hit Giannis for the alley-oop or B) hit the opposite corner shooter, whose man is tagging Giannis rolling to the rim. Like I mentioned, Khris is quite the complete player, but doing a little less with the ball could make a meaningful difference.
The next instalment of this series will feature in-depth breakdowns on Bobby Portis, Brook Lopez, and Gary Trent Jr.