Milwaukee Bucks Were Right To Trade For Michael Carter-Williams
By Adam McGee
Even if Michael Carter-Williams proves not to be the Milwaukee Bucks starting point guard, they were right to make the trade to acquire him.
Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two part series featuring our Editor-in-Chief, Adam McGee, and our Managing Editor, Ti Windisch. Ti and Adam disagree completely on the Brandon Knight/Michael Carter-Williams trade, and have decided to both voice their opinions in editorial articles. Ti went first with his lament for Brandon Knight, and now it’s Adam’s turn.
Michael Carter-Williams is far from the perfect NBA point guard. In fact, there are currently a lot of definite holes in his game. We’ve been down this road plenty of times before.
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He needs to learn how to play with far superior control. Over four turnovers per 36 for his NBA career is an eye sore on his resumé, and doesn’t exactly scream out starting point guard.
In the spacing obsessed NBA of today, Carter-Williams’ 25.5 percent three-point shooting, and 47.3 percent true shooting rate is about as far away from optimum as you can find.
Even his defense, something he has often been praised for, isn’t as good as advertised. A career defensive rating of 106 hardly screams out lockdown defender after all.
None of this means that trading for Michael Carter-Williams was a decision that should be viewed as a major mistake for the Milwaukee Bucks though, and certainly not yet.
Team building in the NBA is a complicated process, so much more so than many every day NBA fans seems willing to comprehend. Believe it or not, there is more to building a successful squad of players than looking down a line of individual numbers and feeling that you’ve covered your bases.
Fit is a word that’s constantly spoken about, yet it can be hard to quantify what exactly makes a good fit.
What wins in the modern NBA is an identity. The Golden State Warriors had space, pace and positional versatility. The San Antonio Spurs were masters of unselfish and intelligent play, combined with efficient play. Who were last year’s Milwaukee Bucks though?
Defense is the first word to spring to mind as the Bucks were the second best in the NBA in that department, but was that ever really going to be who the team was this year? All of this depends on how far out the front office had decided that they were going to go after a high profile center option in the summer.
The plan would not have needed a specific name like Greg Monroe, but if John Hammond and Jason Kidd had decided that they wanted to shift towards having a true inside presence, the whole identity of the team would need to adjust accordingly.
The centerpieces of Milwaukee’s future are Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jabari Parker, and partnered with a dominant big man, the roster would always need a greater balance.
The perfect counter balance for such a forceful frontcourt trio is a steady and efficient backcourt. This is where Khris Middleton comes in. According to Kidd, the decision really fell between Middleton and Knight, the fact that the team opted for the player who last season was the epitome of low-key and efficient production should not be a surprise either.
Dec 21, 2013; Milwaukee, WI, USA; Philadelphia 76ers guard Michael Carter-Williams (1) drives past Milwaukee Bucks guard Brandon Knight (11) in the 2nd quarter at BMO Harris Bradley Center. Mandatory Credit: Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports
This is what it all comes down to between Brandon Knight and Michael Carter-Williams too. I’m going to describe it as “efficiency of positive impact”. In other words, what it would take for both players to be able to utilize their skills to make a meaningful contribution in Milwaukee.
Michael Carter-Williams hasn’t been performing to what anybody’s conventional wisdom would label as efficient, but a trade like this one is more about trying to project what it will take for each player to most positively influence the team’s results, and then to envisage how that meshes with the rest of your current core.
Take Brandon Knight’s excellent start to the season with the Phoenix Suns. Is Brandon Knight a better player than Michael Carter-Williams right now? Yes. What’s important though is how he’s thriving, not just the fact that he is.
Knight has got Eric Bledsoe for company, and with all due respect to the Phoenix Suns, that’s pretty much all he has. Sure, someone like Tyson Chandler is influential, but he doesn’t constantly need the ball.
Knight is averaging 21.7 points, 5.2 assists and 4.6 rebounds through the first 13 games of his season, but he’s doing so with a usage rate of 27.1 percent. That’s a higher percentage of possession going through him than he has ever experienced before in his career.
If we look at how the Bucks shake out in terms of usage, even removing Michael Carter Williams from the equation, you’ll start to see how Knight remaining would have been quite challenging.
| Player | USG% ▾ |
|---|---|
| Michael Carter-Williams | 23.6 |
| Greg Monroe | 23.4 |
| Giannis Antetokounmpo | 22.9 |
| John Henson | 21.1 |
| Chris Copeland | 20.2 |
| Rashad Vaughn | 19.9 |
| Khris Middleton | 19.5 |
| Greivis Vasquez | 19.2 |
| Jerryd Bayless | 18.6 |
| Tyler Ennis | 17.7 |
| Miles Plumlee | 17.5 |
| Jabari Parker | 17.2 |
| Damien Inglis | 16.8 |
| O.J. Mayo | 15.0 |
| Johnny O’Bryant | 12.5 |
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 11/23/2015.
As Jabari Parker returns to full fitness and health, his role and influence will continue to rise meaning there’s even less of the ball to go around.
The question that offers up is, would you have preferred to see Brandon Knight with a larger role in shaping how this team plays going forward than any of Giannis, Jabari or Greg Monroe? I’m not so sure how many people could honestly answer yes to that, and that’s what made it essential that the Bucks looked for a different type of point guard.
That’s exactly what MCW is, although whether the team are developing or utilizing him in the best possible way is certainly debatable right now.
Milwaukee needs a point guard who’s capable of taking a back seat and influencing the game from the background. At present, Carter-Williams doesn’t do that. He takes too many shots and makes too many turnovers. Does he have the potential to do that though? Absolutely.
Take the ball away from Brandon Knight and you’re not left with very much, but Carter-Williams could be a different story.
Carter-Williams’ 6.1 rebounds per 36 for his career to date puts him in elite company on the glass among the league’s point guards.
His defense needs more discipline but his length means the possibilities are endless. There have been plenty of examples of that from the early part of this season too.
Think back to when the Bucks were an 0-3 team battling the lowly Brooklyn Nets for a first win. A sloppy Greg Monroe turnover late on looked set to allow Brooklyn a colossal go-ahead bucket, but MCW showed heart, anticipation and great hands to provide one of the biggest “jump out of your seats” moments of Milwaukee’s season so far.
Then there was the Bucks signature win against the Cavaliers. Carter-Williams had found himself on the end of a brutal dunk from Timofey Mozgov earlier on in the game, but he wasn’t going to let it happen again. Instead he energized his team and helped them to continue to assert their growing authority in the game.
Then there’s Carter-Williams decision-making. His execution leaves a lot to be desired at times, but MCW can see the floor like a true point guard.
Take Saturday’s brutal blowout loss to the Indiana Pacers as an example, because it’s no coincidence that the Bucks looked great in a first quarter where Carter-Williams and the Bucks as a whole were looking to penetrate and make inside passes.
The following is the perfect example of what Milwaukee needs to see from Carter-Williams when the situation calls for aggression.
MCW pushes the pace, then he changes it up to disorient his defender, and then he cancels the hesitation and drives again for deep position. Monta Ellis looks bewildered. How is he supposed to stop a guy that long when he comes at him with pace and has the ball under control?
Watch the Indiana defenders. MCW draws four of them towards him in sheer panic, while the other has to try and rotate late to cover the real threat inside. The pass to Monroe is simple and effective, but only when the point guard has already allowed the play to unfold in his head moments before it actually played out.
The next play is an even better example of what the former Syracuse man offers.
With the shot clock winding down and the offense in no real shape, this is exactly the sort of situation that ends up in a low percentage shot, even in the hands of many of the league’s best floor generals.
Many would have tried the contested shot at the free throw line over Paul George as Chase Budinger pulls away. The few who wouldn’t have taken that one, would certainly have taken the three-pointer as he backed out and created a few feet of space.
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You know what, many Bucks fans would even have expected MCW to take one of those two and to cause them to groan at the end result. Instead though, he stayed composed, spotted a gap, and threaded a beautiful bowling pass through to Greg Monroe for the simple finish.
Just watch Budinger’s body seize up in shock when he sees the ball go past him to Monroe. That sums it all up.
Brandon Knight certainly would have taken one of those two shots.
That’s not a knock on him, in fact he might even have made them, but that’s not the direction the Bucks need to head in.
The franchise’s long-term goal is to win a championship and that was never going to happen with Brandon Knight as the team’s star. If they weren’t going to let him try to be that guy (as Phoenix are now), they wouldn’t have got the best out of him anyway.
Nov 14, 2015; Milwaukee, WI, USA; Milwaukee Bucks guard Michael Carter-Williams (5) during the game against the Cleveland Cavaliers at BMO Harris Bradley Center. Milwaukee won 108-105. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports
Michael Carter-Williams wasn’t brought to Milwaukee to be the team’s star, but he arrived with the habits of a guy who had to carry a team from the first day he stepped foot in the NBA.
MCW needs strong guidance for that to be coached out of him, yet if it can be, there won’t be many players in the NBA who would represent a better fit than him for the players who make up the Bucks true young core.
For the trade itself, it doesn’t really matter if MCW ends up as the team’s long-term point guard or not though. Building a team is all about making calculated risks, and that’s what bringing Carter-Williams in was.
If it all works out, it’s the perfect piece to round out the team. If it doesn’t, the team gave up Brandon Knight, a talented point guard but not one they were best positioned to accommodate.
Sure, some people might have preferred the Lakers pick, but with a real chance that it won’t be conveyed until 2018, it shouldn’t factor into the debate right now. It’s just too far down the line, plain and simple.
The trade was both a swing for the fences and a low-key move to find a perfect role player. Even if Carter-Williams doesn’t pan out, I’ll support it as a move with a grounded logic of improvement. It’s tough to ask for more than that from your franchise’s team-building.