Even evaluators on the high end of Milwaukee’s maneuvering this offseason — the earth-shaking decision to waive Damian Lillard, stretch the balance of his contract over the next five seasons, and use the present-tense savings to snatch Myles Turner away from the Indiana Pacers — had to be at least a little worried about the Bucks’ backcourt mix.
After bidding farewell to Lillard, himself brought in to replace longtime lead guard Jrue Holiday, the Bucks roster was devoid of proven starting-caliber point-guard play. On one hand, that meant Doc Rivers was going to have to redistribute more touches and playmaking responsibility to incumbent eater of worlds Giannis Antetokounmpo — a pretty sound strategy, considering that dude has just kept moseying along at an MVP level as the basketball-watching world’s gaze has wandered to Denver, to Oklahoma City, and now to San Antonio.
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On the other, as incredible as Antetokounmpo is — and he’s currently “36 points, 14 rebounds and 7 assists on 69.5% shooting” incredible — he couldn’t be expected to shoulder 100% of the scoring, initiation and shot-creation workload. For the Bucks to have any chance of the kind of success that Giannis has made it abundantly clear he views as his standard, they’d have to find a guard capable of running the offense, creating shots for himself and others, and knocking down the looks Antetokounmpo creates for him, all while defending like his hair was on fire.
Well, it’s been only five games, but … the Bucks might have found that someone.
A second-round pick out of Toledo in the 2022 NBA Draft, Ryan Rollins battled injuries and saw mostly mop-up minutes as a rookie in Golden State, playing behind the likes of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Jordan Poole, Moses Moody and Ty Jerome. Before he knew it, Rollins was headed to D.C., dealt to the Wizards along with Poole in the deal that made Chris Paul a Warrior; he’d made just 10 appearances in Washington, getting waived midseason amid shoplifting charges.
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Rollins had played all of 128 minutes of NBA basketball when he landed in Milwaukee on a two-way contract in February 2024; he barely saw the court over the next two months, but showed enough in practice to stick around. When a calf injury took Lillard out of the lineup last December, Rivers turned to Rollins, who seized the opportunity, guarding with vigor at the point of attack, limiting his turnovers and not trying to do too much offensively. When a blood clot again sidelined Lillard late in the season, Rollins again stepped into the fray, averaging just under 11 points and four assists per game through the end of the regular season — still bringing defensive intensity, but now flashing more confidence on the other end of the floor, shooting 56.6% on 2-pointers and 47.8% from deep.
Bucks guard Ryan Rollins celebrates with forward Kyle Kuzma after beating the Golden State Warriors at Fiserv Forum on Thursday. (Benny Sieu-Imagn Images)
(IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect / Reuters)
That stay-ready mentality and on-demand production — even while playing through a left shoulder injury that required surgery after the season — earned Rollins a conversion from two-way to regular contract last spring and a new deal this summer: three years, $12 million.
“For us to be able to invest in him, give him a deal that keeps him with us for a couple of years, it’s a bit of a bridge deal,” Bucks general manager Jon Horst said this summer. “He’s got a chance to outplay it.”
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That chance came early this season. With the Bucks looking for backcourt help post-Dame, and with first-choice starting ball-handler Kevin Porter Jr. stalled by a sprained left ankle, Rivers slid Rollins into the starting lineup and tossed him the keys. Turns out, the kid’s pretty comfortable behind the wheel.
Rollins has scored in double figures in all four of his starts for the Bucks, authoring consecutive career-best performances. After scoring more than 20 points just once through his first 87 career games, he did it in back-to-back games this week. First, he scored a then-career-high 25 points in 26 minutes on 8-for-11 shooting with 4 assists and 4 steals in Milwaukee’s emphatic 121-111 win over the Knicks. Then he outdid himself, scoring a new career-high 32 points on 13-for-21 shooting to go with 8 assists against just 1 turnover in 36 electric minutes as the Bucks knocked off the Warriors — the team that drafted him and dealt him to Washington! — without a resting Antetokounmpo:
Milwaukee enters the weekend at 4-1, a half-game behind the undefeated 76ers and Bulls for the top spot in the East, with the NBA’s No. 6 offense and No. 11 defense, according to Cleaning the Glass. And while the lion’s share of the credit for that strong start lies with the undeniable and overwhelming Antetokounmpo, plenty of it also belongs to Rollins — a 6-foot-3, 180-pound two-way dog who’ll take an elbow to the chops and keep getting buckets and stops with a busted lip, and who’s playing like he’s not trying to go back to life on the bench for a long, long time.
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“He was hooping. Ryan is a hooper, yo,” Bucks guard Cole Anthony told reporters after the win over the Warriors. “He be in here grinding every single day. He’s a pro.”
One who understands what brought him to the dance, too:
Rollins’ 12 steals rank second in the NBA. His 28 deflections rank first. He picks up full court, hounding opposing ball-handlers all over the floor — his breakout performances came while also taking primary defensive responsibilities on All-NBA stalwarts Curry and Jalen Brunson — while holding his matchups to 37.3% shooting, 9.2% below their expected field-goal percentage. According to NBA Advanced Stats, that’s the 11th-biggest differential among 109 players who’ve contested at least 50 shots this season.
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That type of active, effective defense against high-level opposition got Rollins’ foot in the door in Milwaukee. An advancing ability to knock down perimeter shots — 40.8% from 3-point range last season, including 43% on catch-and-shoot looks and a 65.4% cash-out rate on passes from Antetokounmpo — kept it there.
Replicating the kind of all-around offensive performances he just turned in against New York and Golden State, though — the kind that some optimistic draftniks saw the potential for him to generate coming out of Toledo — might just kick it open.
After beginning the season as an under-the-radar bellwether in Milwaukee, this stellar start — 18.6 points, 5 assists, 3.6 rebounds and 2.4 steals in 31 minutes per game on 52/44/88 shooting splits — could cement the 23-year-old not only as a rotation regular for Rivers, but potentially as a bona fide building block for a Bucks team that could really use more offensive juice next to the big fella.
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Rollins is explosive off the dribble, able to beat the first line of defense to get into the paint. He’s averaging nearly 10 drives per game, second on the Bucks behind Antetokounmpo, and taking nearly 40% of his field-goal attempts in the restricted area; he’s making the most of them, too, converting 85% of his point-blank tries, according to Cleaning the Glass.
He’s also adept at spraying the ball back out to the perimeter after those paint touches. Fifteen of his 25 assists this season have generated 3-pointers, according to PBP Stats — more than all but nine players in the league thus far (LaMelo Ball, Davion Mitchell, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Tyrese Maxey, Draymond Green, Devin Booker, Cade Cunningham, Antetokounmpo and Jimmy Butler).
Combine the threat of those drives with the threat of him splashing a jumper off the bounce outside the paint — Rollins shot a respectable 41% from midrange last season and is 6-for-12 on pull-up 3s so far this season — and you’ve got a recipe for keeping defenders off balance. Sprinkle in a sense for when and how to change pace, create space and maneuver through layers of defense, and you’ve got a north-south ball-handler who can consistently put pressure on the rim. Give that guy a 40-plus-percent success rate on catch-and-shoot triples, and he sounds like a pretty perfect complement to Giannis, doesn’t he?
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“He’s been playing incredible,” Antetokounmpo told reporters after the win over the Knicks. “Defensively, he’s one of the most annoying guards, probably, in the league. He’s making the right reads. He’s able to play with me, come off the bench, pretty much does everything. I love playing with him.”
As arguments for sustained NBA job security go, “Giannis loves playing with me” ain’t half bad. (Shouts out to Thanasis.) By earning more minutes and seizing the opportunity to ball out in a bigger role, Rollins has done one of the hardest things there is to do in the league: forcing his way from the fringes of an organization toward the center of its present and future plans. Now, he has to do something even harder: stay there.
“It’s just the start for me, man, that’s how I look at it,” Rollins told reporters Thursday. “Just a good platform to me get situated, and then I just go from there. Keep doing what I’m doing that got me here. Just keep growing.”