The NBA Has a Milwaukee Bucks Problem…

The NBA Has a Milwaukee Bucks Problem…

We have seen this before. A new NBA season will begin and someone will be doing something so ridiculous that the numbers stop looking real. And this season, that player is Giannis. Somehow at the age of 30, after nearly a decade of dominance, a championship, two MVPs, and every scouting report imaginable, trying to find a way to slow this guy down. And yet, he’s having the most complete start to a season he has ever had. Right now, he’s averaging 32.6 points, 11.5 rebounds, and 7.3 assists per game, while adding 2.3 combined steals and blocks. Doing it all on 66% true shooting. I mean, the dude’s even knocking down threes at a 47% clip. The stuff that Giannis is doing right now just does not make any sense. He’s bending defenses in the same way that he’s always done. But this season, he’s making teams pay in a way we haven’t really seen too deeply before, properly manipulating coverages, reading pressure, and playmaking at a scale that’s completely new. Fully leveraging the new spacing around him. And the craziest part about all of this is that nothing has even fully clicked for Milwaukee just yet. Giannis has been doubled more than any star in the league to begin this season. Every time he touches the ball inside of the three-point arc, he’s swarmed, trapped, collapsed on, or completely walled off. And instead of trying to crowbar his way through bodies like he used to, he’s now beating teams instead. And I mean dictating terms, using his playmaking abilities instead. He’s reading coverages like a quarterback, manipulating weak side defenders. And now that Milwaukee has the right spacing around him, he’s able to make an array of reads, hitting back door cutters like a Koozma, corner shooters like AJ Green and Gary Trent, and the rollman or pop man in screen actions like Miles Turner andor Bobby Poris now that he gets to be the ball handler. It wasn’t just an accident that he put up 25 points and 18 assists on 67% shooting against Charlotte. That was a deliberate approach. He’s just consistently making the right reads on drives. And it’s been quietly revealing a new version of Milwaukee’s offense. One that’s quietly been one of the best in the league so far this season. Opponents can throw as many bodies at Giannis as they want to, but he just threw 18 assists back at the Hornets. and you just cannot scheme that away. This is the evolution that Milwaukee is finally leaning into, giving Giannis the keys to the offense as the team’s primary initiator instead of having a guy like Dame or Chris do all the ball handling now that just letting Giannis do everything. His usage rate is sitting at an absurd 36.9% this season, literally in the 100th percentile leaguewide. meaning over a third of every Milwaukee possession is ending with either a Giannis shot, turnover, or assist. And with that workload, the Buck’s entire offensive profile shifts the second he’s off the floor. With Giannis in the game, Milwaukee has a 125.5 offensive rating in the 95th percentile leaguewide while generating an elite 62% effective field goal percentage. Those numbers are great. good enough to give the Bucks a plus N point differential when he’s out there. Compare that to last season when he was essentially the secondary initiator behind Damen Lillard. Garnis and Dame together posted a 117.9 offensive rating only in the 75th percentile. Still above average, but nothing close to what we’re seeing now. Just giving Giannis the ball more often has completely transformed this offense. Even though the Bucks lost Damen Lillard and didn’t really replace that offensive production at the guard spot, Milwaukee got better by just surrounding Giannis with a bunch of play finishes instead of guys who are trying to set up plays for Giannis. Because the fact of the matter is Giannis is the table setter. He’s the guy who can go get his own and while doing so create great looks for everybody else. And Milwaukee is finally fully leaning into that. Now, the big concern, and it’s one I’ve seen a lot of people bring up, is how much Giannis is having to do and whether or not he can hold up over the course of the full season. His playoff injury history since the championship year definitely makes this a question that you can’t ignore. But here’s something nobody seems to be talking about. Giannis is only playing 33 minutes a night. Last season, he played 34 and the year before that he played 35. And in those years, he had a far better supporting cast, at least from a talent perspective. Milwaukee clearly is managing him differently now, focusing on getting him to the postseason fully healthy. The idea is simple. Counterbalance the increased usage with fewer minutes and more rest days. Now, whether or not this actually works long-term is something that only time will tell us. But Giannis is only part of what’s happening in Milwaukee right now. Because the biggest shift in the team season did not come from their MVP. It’s actually come from a guy that almost nobody believed in, Kyle Koosma. Most Bucks fans wanted this guy traded as fast as possible, especially after how badly he played in the postseason a year ago. He literally had a game where he did not record a single stat in almost half an hour of action. I mean, that’s how low the confidence was. Nobody trusted him. Nobody believed in him and the assumption was simple. He just doesn’t fit the pace and space style that Milwaukee is trying to build. But now he might actually be the hidden key to the Bucks finding a real identity. Doc Rivers shocked everybody when he inserted Kyle Kosma into the starting five for the first time this season alongside of Giannis. not just filling in for an injury replacement. Legitimately entering the starting five in the NBA Cup game versus the Hornets. This was a look I wasn’t expecting to see again because the spacing issues are kind of obvious. I mean, Koozma is a sub 30% three-point shooter this season, but the move was not about the offense. It’s about trying to fix the other side of the floor. Size, rebounding, defense, and overall activity. Koozma in the starting role can give Milwaukee everything they’ve been missing so far on that end. And I know this might sound wild to someone who hasn’t watched the Bucks as closely as I have this season, but Koosma has legitimately been their most consistent defensive player this season. These numbers even surprised me. But as the primary defender this season, Kuz is holding his opponents to just 37% shooting on 10.1 attempts per game. And Milwaukee’s not hiding him either. He’s legitimately guarding the best players on the other team. One of his early season big defensive games was when he completely shot down Carl Anthony Towns. And really, he’s been quietly excellent on that side of the ball all season. And when you add in his well-known rebounding ability, especially when he’s playing the three matched up against smaller wings, then the fit defensively just makes a ton of sense. It solves a problem that Milwaukee has desperately needed to fix, and we’ll get to that more deeply later. Offensively though, this is where Koozma still needs to prove that he is the right guy for the starting five. He needs to show us that he can compliment Giannis. He still has a few of these little Washington moments, as I call them, where he goes rogue and takes a completely terrible shot, but they’ve been far less often this season. Off the catch is where he’s been doing most of his damage. Currently giving the Bucks 14.6 points per game on 62% true shooting solely coming off the bench, which are really great numbers. The question now is how all this looks long-term with him in the starting five. One great game against Charlotte, 29 points on 65% shooting isn’t enough to fully guarantee anything, but it did show us the blueprint. I think we’ll need around a 10 game sample size to really know if he’s the answer or not. But his first game in that role showed us that if done correctly, it can work because right now the Bucks absolutely need him in there. They need the size, they need the activity, and they need that extra defensive juice. And after the first game of the Koosma experiment, he was able to give them all three. So Milwaukey’s trying to patch up some of their defensive and rebounding issues by inserting Koozma into the starting group. But another massive problem they were facing coming into this season was what they were going to do with on ball creation outside of Giannis. KPJ was supposed to be that guy until he went down on opening night and that completely opened the door for Ryan Rollins to step in and he’s been fantastic. I have already made an entire video explaining why his breakout wasn’t a fluke. And since then, he’s only continued to prove me right. Against the Hornets, in his most recent game, he put up 20 points, eight boards, and four assists on eight of 12 shooting and four of six from deep. If he’s not the leader for the most improved player, it’s probably AJ Mitchell of the Thunder. But honestly, if neither of these guys go on to win it, we need to riot because they’ve both been ridiculously good. Rollins is giving Milwaukee 17.5 points, 5.5 assists, and 1.7 steals per game while shooting a ridiculous 48% from three with a 65% true shooting percentage overall. Those are insane efficiency numbers, especially for a young guard who was supposed to just be a nice off-bench piece. Instead, he’s giving them something they’ve desperately needed for two seasons. A good defensive guard. Someone who can make plays off the dribble. A guy who can actually hit threes at a good volume. And most importantly, someone outside of Giannis who can apply real rim pressure. He’s almost become their stabilizer at the guard spot. and the main reason why the offense hasn’t collapsed without the presence of Damen Lillard. But Rollins isn’t the only new piece that has been transforming the team. The other guy who’s been quietly sensational is Miles Turner. He did really struggle early on not being able to knock down the three ball and struggling to get used to his new role in the offense where he’s basically being told to shoot it every single time you have an inch of daylight. But now he’s finally coming around to the new role. In their most recent outing versus Charlotte, Turner went six of eight from three for 18 points. And his averages are starting to look like what you’d expect. 41% from deep, 12.8 points per game, 1.2 steals, and 1.8 blocks. That’s the kind of two-way impact Milwaukee signed him for. He hasn’t been blowing up the box score every night, but he’s been giving the Bucks the impact they needed. interior defense, different coverages when defending the pick and roll, traditional rim protection, floor spacing, and super low mistake basketball offensively, as he rarely turns the ball over. He’s basically became their Brook Lopez replacement, except for the fact that he’s far more mobile, better vertically, and a cleaner pick and pop shooter. And the scary part about all of this is how this is the worst the front court of Giannis and Turner is ever going to look. They’ve barely played a month together. Yet, they’re already fitting in well, and they have not even scratched the surface of what they’re actually going to be. But all of this brings us to the problems that Milwaukee still has and the areas they absolutely need to improve upon before the playoffs. The first issue is their defensive rebounding. Milwaukee sits in the bottom third of the league, 20th for defensive boards per game. It simply doesn’t matter how well you defend the first action if you keep allowing teams to crash the offensive glass and attack you again. Charlotte managed to score 12 second chance points. And that’s actually on the lower end of the damage teams have been able to do. Their rebounding issues were put on the maximum display against the Rockets, the best rebounding team in the NBA. Houston grabbed 50 boards to Milwaukee’s 27, generating 18 second chance points, completely manhandling the Bucks down low. And for a team with Giannis and Miles Turner patrolling the paint, they should not be this bad on the glass. It’s one of the main reasons Doc Rivers made that change to the starting five to add Koozma trying to insert more size, length, and physicality out there on the floor. Because the truth is very simple. you’re not going to be able to win deep into the playoffs with that kind of a leakage. And that leakage has bled directly into Milwaukee’s overall defensive numbers this season. The Bucks are currently sitting in the 42nd percentile in defensive rating, allowing 116.7 points per 100 possessions, which is far worse of a number than I expected. The eye test will tell you that they should be a far better defensive team this season. Turner’s mobility certainly helps. They have more answers when it comes to defending pick and roll instead of just running drop coverage every single time. And with Ryan Rollins out there instead of Lillard, they look more active. But the metrics and numbers do not reflect it because they’re giving up so many offensive rebounds, killing what would have been solid defensive possessions. The second problem kind of continues on from this discussion. It’s the perimeter defense. Now, it hasn’t been horrendous, but it definitely hasn’t been good. Too many players who are 6’4 or shorter are being forced to guard up. Too many blowbyss, too much reliance on Giannis and Turner to erase shots from the backline. And yes, Koozma entering the starting five should help, but the roster still lacks defensive wings, and that’s a problem you’re not going to be able to ignore in April or May. The third issue, and arguably the most pressing, is the nonannis minutes. Without Giannis in the game, the offense just disappears. The spacing collapses, creation is gone, and the scoring evaporates. Everything just falls apart. Milwaukee desperately needs Rollins to continue to develop. They need Koozma to be good in the starting five offensively. They need Kevin Porter Jr. to get back healthy as soon as possible. and they need the bench to stop bleeding points when Giannis sits right now when Giannis isn’t in the game. Milwaukee has an offensive rating of 105.3 in the sixth percentile in the entire league while also having the lowest free throw rate in the NBA and a defensive rating of 116.8 equating to a point differential of minus 11.5 whenever Giannis is not present. That’s really bad. And it means the Bucks need to try and find a way to stagger the minutes better. Maybe having more minutes where it’s just Miles Turner out there to try and at least get that point differential a little higher. When Kevin Porter Jr. comes back, I think the bench unit will look a lot better. But it might just be an issue that this roster is always going to have unless a move is made. If Milwaukee can clean up these areas, the rebounding, the perimeter defense, and the rotational minutes, I think they could be in a much stronger position. The team’s certainly not complete. They’re definitely missing pieces. And with limited picks and very few assets, I’m not sure how they’re actually going to be able to make the moves needed. But what’s absolutely clear is that this is the best version of Giannis we’ve ever laid our eyes on. And with this version of Giannis controlling everything, the Bucks do have a real chance against anybody when he goes into full takeover mode. But in a similar vein, when Oklahoma City gets going, it feels like there’s nothing you can do to slow them down. And if you want to see how the best team in the NBA somehow got even better this season, all while missing their second best player, then you can check out that full breakdown video right Now,

The NBA Has a Milwaukee Bucks Problem…

Somehow, at the age of 30, after a decade of dominance, a championship, MVPs, and every scouting report imaginable trying to find a way to Giannis Antetokounmpo, he’s having the most complete start to a season he has ever had…
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// TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 This version of Giannis should not exist…
4:23 The Big Concern With Giannis
5:30 Milwaukee’s Wildcard
7:41 How Kuzma Can Remain A Starter
8:55 The Glue Guys
12:09 What Needs To Change

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