The former Piston scoffs at your scepticism, and so do I
I see the Stanley Umude erasure lurking in the Brew Hoop comment section, and I simply won’t “stan” for it—OK, let me have that one. Am I a sicko for openly advocating for a two-way guy—who may well be gone in a few months—to get real minutes on this team? Probably. Do I care? Not in the slightest.
We’ll get to that. But first, some bio stuff:
Stanley Umude joins Milwaukee on a two-way contract as a somewhat mature-aged recruit at 25 years old. So, where did this dude come from? Stanley played last season on a two-way with Detroit after spending the previous season mostly on their G League team (Basketball Reference tells me he signed a ten-day contract with the Pistons in the first year, playing in one game). Umude joined the Motor City Cruise—which is a super-groovy name for a basketball team, by the way—after going undrafted in 2022 following a five-year college career spent between the Universities of South Dakota and Arkansas. This upcoming season will be his third as a pro.
Anyway, that’s the bio stuff. What does Stanley do exactly, and why might the Bucks have been interested? Well, the book on Umude is that he is a three-and-D player. If everything hits, the former Razorback projects as a solid athlete who, at 6’6” with a 6’10” wingspan and a strong 210-pound frame, can guard multiple positions while consistently knocking down shots from deep.
For a more in-depth analysis on his game, I want to shout out Allison Polhemus of Hoops Prospects, who wrote what I thought was a very informative draft profile of Stanley. Here is just a portion of it:
Though he flourished as an all-around scorer with the [South Dakota] Coyotes and is a good athlete, Umude has never thrived as a primary ball handler at any point in his college career. He struggles to gain separation and settles for too many difficult and/or mid-range jumpers. He’s also far from being a reliable playmaker… As a pro, there is little chance that he will be asked to be a primary ball handler, but he will need to improve as a passer to earn consistent minutes.
Umude has the tools to be a very effective defender at the professional level. He features great speed and vertical explosiveness, and he is solid in terms of length, quickness, and lateral movement. He’s a very sticky on-ball defender, who plays with effort and energy… The Portland native is switchable, capable of guarding positions one through four.
Overall, the good things outweigh the bad when it comes to Umude’s defence and offense. He is an energetic and athletic defender, who can guard multiple positions… However, his awareness and discipline could improve on both ends of the court.
Well, there you have it. Umude sounds like your typical role player with relatively low upside, but a dependable skill set that theoretically translates well to the NBA. The question readers, and evidently the Bucks front office, are or should be asking is: how much will these weaknesses matter on this team? For what it’s worth, Stanley has shown some interesting creation stuff in the G League. Watch below for some highlights, courtesy of Jimmy Xalk, from his first season with the Cruise:
Some readers might be surprised to know that Umude got real playing time in Detroit for portions of last season. He played meaningful minutes all throughout the month of November, which included performances of fifteen, ten, ten, nineteen, and eleven points. There was another stretch in March where he scored nine, ten, and eight points before his season ended with a hairline fracture of his right ankle. Intuition Hoops Two constructed a montage of scoring highlights from the November stretch, which you can watch below:
For the NBA season, Stanley averaged 5.3 points on 44/45/90 shooting splits in about thirteen minutes of action per game. The 45 percent from three is very intriguing, especially considering it came on not insignificant volume at 2.2 attempts per game. For reference, Andre Jackson attempted 0.8 threes per game last season and AJ Green shot three per game. Can Umude increase those attempts, playing next to superstars, while maintaining that percentage? If so, that’s a pretty damn useful player.
Of course, we are projecting what Stanley could be off a limited sample size. But if you look at his G League stats to increase the sample size, many of these trends check out. On the positive side, his defensive numbers get better; he averaged nearly two stocks per game in the G. On the negative side, his three-point shooting plummeted to about 30 percent as his attempts rose significantly to 9.3 per game.
Honestly, these numbers just confirm what conventional wisdom tells you: that A) his defensive “production” increases against lesser competition—duh, as it should, and B) as a limited offensive player, the efficiency decreases when his offensive burden is greater than he is comfortable with—duh. This is fine because the Bucks literally just need him to do what he’s good at.
With all that said, is there seriously a tangible path to playing time for Stanley? I probably wouldn’t bet on it—two-way guys rarely contribute to NBA teams—but I will nonetheless make the case because I believe it is a credible one. If memory serves, Umude was one of the first signings of the summer for Milwaukee, even with him being injured at the time. The front office clearly identified him as a guy who fit exactly what they were looking for.
Furthermore, Stanley played real minutes last year! You assume he would have had other suitors, possibly rebuilding teams where he could have gotten run. But no, he signed with Milwaukee early in the summer. Why? You can basically rule out this two-way being much of a developmental project, he’s already 25. Maybe the front office truly believed he could help from day one, and they gave him some assurances? The last time the Bucks had a two-way that came in with a ready-made NBA skill set was probably AJ Green, and he leapfrogged multiple young Bucks for minutes solely because of that.
It’s not hard to imagine Doc Rivers—with multiple attention-drawing superstars on the team—looking down his roster seeking eighth, ninth, and tenth men that he can trust to play solid defence and hit threes at a reliable clip, and landing on Umude. Maybe the goal is to “gift” AJ Johnson these minutes to plan for the future. That’s a possibility. But maybe they do indeed just want to play a low-risk option in Stanley?
Think about it. After Delon Wright and Taurean Prince, who are the ready-to-play guys Rivers would land on before Stanley Umude? You would say AJ Green and probably Pat Connaughton. That’s nine. Who’s next? What happens if Andre Jackson can’t throw a rock in the ocean? As much as I love AJ Johnson, you’d think not. Tyler Smith? Chris Livingston? MarJon Beauchamp?
Bueller?
There are more projects on this team than you realise. In Stanley, you seemingly have a player with a ready-made NBA skill set, even if that is a limited one. If you remove the two-way tag, is it really controversial to say that Umude could be more NBA-ready than a lot of these guys? For one, he’s already shown it on an NBA court, unlike the majority of the aforementioned names. Why the heck not him?
Anyway, that’s my best case for Stanley Umude playing real minutes. Did I convince anyone? Submit your answer in the poll below on his playoff prospects.
And on we go to the next round of player voting!
Voting closes at 8 AM (Central) tomorrow!